


Three-Quarters Fine

by Teeelsie



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Winterhawk - Fandom
Genre: Angst, BAMF Bucky Barnes, BAMF Clint Barton, Blood, Boats and Ships, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, But just temporarily b/c you know, Clint Barton Needs a Hug, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt Bucky Barnes, Hurt Clint Barton, Hurt/Comfort, Idiots in Love, M/M, Medical Procedures, Mission Fic, Mutual Pining, On the Run, Protective Bucky Barnes, graphic depiction of injury, he has that super soldier healing thing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-15
Updated: 2020-09-27
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:27:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 40,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21809536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Teeelsie/pseuds/Teeelsie
Summary: It was supposed to be a simple in and out job.It didn't go as planned.
Relationships: Clint Barton/Bucky Barnes
Comments: 319
Kudos: 757
Collections: Charity Hawktion 2019





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [flawedamythyst](https://archiveofourown.org/users/flawedamythyst/gifts).



> A fic for flawedamythyst, who won my offering in the Charity Hawktion. Thank you for your generous charitable donation. I hope this fic hits the right buttons! 
> 
>   
> Humongous thanks to Jackdaw45 and MillyVeil, both of whom beta'd this at the literal last minute. You guys are the best!!

It was supposed to be a simple in and out job.

This is how it was supposed to go:

They wait until their mark is sitting at his computer in his home-office in the evening, and then Clint fires a tethered arrow through the perpetually open bathroom window of the apartment above, piercing the water pipe. He taps the trigger on his bow which activates a very small explosion (more of a small burst, really), and then Clint retracts the arrow as water pours out onto the floor. A few minutes later, when water begins to drip into the apartment below, the man gets up and rushes to investigate. As soon as he leaves, Bucky slips into the apartment, slides a USB into the abandoned computer, and starts the file transfer. One minute and fifty seconds later, while the man and his upstairs adjacent neighbor are trying to trouble shoot the growing flood, Bucky pulls the USB from the drive, salutes toward where he knows Clint is watching, and casually exits the apartment. Clint packs his gear into his backpack, hops from the roof of the apartment building he’s on, across to the next one. He takes the stairs to the lobby, and leaves via the side exit. From there he takes a wildly circuitous route – variously walking and taking trains and taxis - back to their safehouse. Bucky, having taken a completely different route, is there when he arrives. A couple hours later, they’re on a plane and back in New York in time for breakfast. Easy peasy.

That is not how it goes.

This is how it actually goes:

Clint shoots the pipe, the water floods the apartment below. The mark leaves and Bucky enters. He downloads the files, salutes to Clint, who packs up his gear and makes his way across to the building next door. He takes the stairs to the lobby, and leaves via the side exit.

This is where everything goes balls up.

The instant Clint walks out of the building, he feels a sudden, sharp pain in his side. His hand instinctively finds the spot under his jacket, and when he pulls it back, there’s blood. He’s just formulating the thought that he’s been shot when the brick next to his head explodes from another bullet, sending shattered pieces of it stinging across his face and neck. A woman who was walking past yelps and Clint grabs her and shoves her into a recessed doorway.

”Stay down!” he yells, and then bolts down the block in the opposite direction, hoping to draw any more fire away from her or anyone else that might be on the street. He’s just about to round the corner when he’s tagged again – this time, a bullet bites into his forearm. He stumbles and almost falls as he careens around the corner, bouncing off a car and leaving behind a bloody smear of a handprint. The pain in his arm is blinding and blood is dripping freely, but he ignores it as he rights himself to be off and running again.

There are footsteps and yelling behind him. He ducks into another apartment building, runs through the lobby and out the back door into an alley. At the end of it he turns left, runs a half-block and turns left again. He crosses the street and slips into a crowded nightclub. The music is loud and thrumming and he can feel every beat of the vibration in his arm; he’d almost believe that his blood was pouring out of him in time to the music. Someone bumps him, and he nearly screams, barely makes it stumbling through the back hall, past the bathrooms, and out a rear exit.

The alley is empty so he lets himself stop for a second. When the flare of fire in his arm quells a little, he shoulders off his pack. He digs out the two guns, the knife, papers and cash. The rest he throws in the dumpster, sparing a second of regret to lose the collapsible bow, but it's not like he could use it with his armed fucked the way it is. He has just finished very carefully lifting his left arm with his right to slide his hand into his pocket so he will hopefully not leave a trail of blood behind for someone to follow, when the door slams open. Clint has his Glock out and pointed without conscious thought.

A woman teeters out of the nightclub on high heels. She’s got a cigarette in her mouth already and she’s repeatedly flicking a stubbornly uncooperative lighter. When she finally lifts her eyes and sees Clint, she squeaks and drops the lighter. The cigarette falls from her mouth and her hands go up. Her eyes are filled with terror.

“Esta bem,” Clint says quickly, shifting the pistol so it’s pointing toward the sky. “Eu nau vou te machucar.” He shoves the gun in his jacket pocket, and holds out a placating hand. She doesn’t look reassured, but when he lifts his finger to his lips, she gives him a jerky nod in return. “Volte para dentro,” he tells her, gesturing toward the door with his head.

She doesn’t need to be told twice; she disappears as quickly as she appeared. Clint takes a deep breath and starts jogging again. He moves as smoothly as he can but every step is agony as it jostles his arm. Adrenaline keeps him going, though, as does the ripping fear that Bucky may not have gotten as lucky as he did.

He leaves the alley and crosses the street, trots down the block and around the corner, then down a block and around the next corner. He zigzags like that for a kilometer or so before he lets himself start looking for a spot to stop and catch his breath. He’s in a residential neighborhood in an older part of the city, so there’s no classic grid system, but there are myriad alleys and warrens to hide in. He slides silently through the narrow gap between two dark houses into the back garden, where he spots a small shed. It’s locked, but it’s the work of about 15 seconds to pick it, even one handed. As soon as he’s inside and the door is closed, he slides down the wall in the pitch dark, biting his lip to hold back a groan.

He sits, eyes closed as he catches his breath, listening for any sounds that might tell him he was followed. There's only silence. He’s exhausted, shaking in pain, but he knows he can’t stop for very long, so he pulls out his burner phone and presses it to life. The dim green light illuminates the shed and he holds up the phone. The only things there are four bicycles, some empty flower pots, and a set of folding chairs leaned up against the far wall. Not particularly useful. He turns back to his phone and opens the contacts, hitting the only one in it. Bucky answers on the second ring and relief washes over Clint. “We’re made.”

“I know,” Barnes answers. He’s breathing heavily, it sounds like he’s running.

“Are you alright?”

“Mostly. You?"

“Same. Do you remember the story I told you about Widow?”

“What?” Bucky asks, distracted and apparently caught off guard by the question.

“Widow. The story I told you yesterday. _Do you remember?”_

There’s a beat before, “Yeah. Yeah, I remember.”

“Ditch the phone and anything else that could possibly have a tracker in it.” He hangs up before Barnes can reply. They’re burner phones, purchased in Valencia on their roundabout travel to Lisbon, but at this point, they can’t be too careful.

He fumbles with the phone until he manages to hit the flashlight button, and the shed is suddenly awash in light. Clint closes his eyes, takes a steadying breath, then looks down and points the light toward his left arm. He doesn’t have the time or necessary supplies to do anything more than a quick assessment, but he needs to do that, at least. There’s not a lot of blood on his jacket, though he can see the hole the bullet made about an inch below his elbow. He slides his hand out of his pocket as smoothly as he can, but it’s still excruciating and he can’t hold back a small moan. His hand is coated in blood where it’s run down his arm under the leather and pooled in his pocket. 

Clint closes his eyes again, swallows and takes another deep breath. When he opens them, he uses a shaky hand to unzip his leather jacket and gently tugs it open to look at the other wound. The left side of his shirt is painted in red and he can’t tell if it’s still actively bleeding. He doesn’t pay it much more attention though because at the moment, it hurts a hell of a lot less than his arm.

He grits his teeth and carefully slips his arm out of his jacket to take a closer look. There’s no fucking exit wound that he can see. He never saw the shooter or where they were, but they must have been fairly close and using a small caliber weapon or his arm would have been blown right off. Or possibly he was hit by a ricochet. Either way, the lack of exit wound is pretty fucking troubling.

When he tries, he finds he can move his fingers – barely - but when he attempts to rotate his hand, the result has his jaw clamping tightly and an animalistic sound working its way out of him, despite his efforts to keep it in. He holds still and tries to slow his breathing, willing away the terrifying spots dancing in his periphery while he tries very hard not to think about how badly he needs two fully-functioning arms and hands to do his job. He knows he should pack the bleed, but he’s got nothing to do that with and even if he did, he’s pretty sure that any direct pressure or trying to tie it off is going to end with a Lisbon housewife finding him unconscious in her garden storage shed. So, nope, not going to be able to do anything more with his arm for now.

When he feels more steady, he gingerly tucks his arm across his belly, pressing his elbow against the wound in his side as hard as he can manage without passing out, then rezips his jacket with one fumbling hand. When his heartrate slows a bit and the pain has deescalated by way of remaining still, he picks up the phone again.

He pulls up the keypad, and it takes him three fumbling tries to punch in the phone number he knows by heart. He struggles to his feet while the systems connect. It picks up after five rings but there’s only silence on the other end of the line.

“It was a set-up. They knew my retreat.” Clint’s voice has the slightest quaver to it. Most people wouldn’t notice.

“How bad are you hurt?” Natasha asks, words clipped and to the point.

“Not bad. Fucking hurts like a sonofabitch though.” He lets an uneasy laugh slip out.

“Barnes?”  
  


“Running. We’re separated but have a rendezvous point.”

“Are you sure it’s safe?”

“No, but it’s the best I could come up with given the circumstances. We’ll be going dark for a while.”

“I’ll start working on extraction.”

“Not sure where it will be.”

“I’ll get things in place, ready to go wherever you land.”

“Only you, Nat. They’ve got someone inside.”

“Roger that. Be safe.”

Clint cuts the connection and powers the phone off before slipping it into his pocket. He’d really like to stay where he is and rest some more, but he’s still too close to the op zone and he has a couple kilometers to cover while it’s still dark. He takes a deep breath and cracks the door, peering out into the dark night. When he slinks back out to the street, he drops the phone on the ground, crushes it ruthlessly beneath the heel of his boot, then kicks the pieces into a sewer drain. After taking one more cautious look in both directions, he starts moving again.

* * *

When the phone finally rings - what seems like an eternity after the shit hit the fan, but probably isn’t more than about twenty minutes or so - Bucky has a split second of paralyzing fear that it won’t be Clint’s voice on the other end of the line. But it is. Thank god, it is. After the call disconnects, Bucky has to stop and lean against a wall in a dark courtyard, his knees nearly buckling at the crushing relief of knowing that Clint is still alive.

He’s an idiot, he knows it; he’s compromised and he shouldn’t be on missions with Barton. No, that’s not really the issue. He shouldn’t be _sleeping_ with Barton. But knowing that and doing something about it are two completely different things.

They’re too well matched, which makes things great, and which is also the problem. They’re both cocky and irreverent, except when they're working, when they are both consummate professionals who do what’s necessary to get the job done. There’s a comradery to most everything they do. Bucky is a marksman; so is Clint. They horse around on the range a lot, compete good-naturedly, make up more and more ridiculous challenges. Bucky’s good, he knows he’s one of the best ever. He also knows that Clint is better. Normally that would have rankled him, started his competitive juices flowing. But as he got to know Clint better, heard little snatches of his story, his life, Bucky found that he couldn’t really begrudge Clint’s skill. It was hard-earned and Clint never lorded his superior abilities over Bucky, so Bucky never got his back up. They also both love food carts, finding in their own very different pasts, reason to appreciate cheap food in large quantities. And when Clint grows quiet, or disappears for a day or two, Bucky understands. Just like Clint leaves Bucky to stew by himself on bad days.

The sex had happened easily, naturally; one day, they were screwing around on the range, and that turned into screwing around in bed. When they were done, Clint had turned his head and looked a little uneasy. “You’ve uh, you’ve done that before, right? I mean, I’m not the first guy…” his words had trailed off.

He had looked so anxious that Bucky had laughed and rolled his eyes. “No, Barton. You’re not the first guy I’ve ever fucked. Hook-ups during the war were a pretty common thing. I had my fair share.”

Something flickered across Clint’s face. “Hook-ups,” he nodded, “Yeah.” He tucked his hands behind his head, then, and grinned. “So, uh, ya know, if you ever want to hook-up again, I’d be game.”

There were still things Bucky didn’t quite get about the 21st century. Before he was the Winter Soldier, he’d had plenty of one-night stands. But if you wooed a girl, if you went places with them, did things with them, and then you slept with them… well, that was…she was your girlfriend, then. He had been under the impression that it was kind of the same if two guys got together these days, and he’d kind of thought that that’s what had been going on with him and Clint, even though they hadn’t really discussed it. But Clint’s phrasing caught him off guard, and had him wondering. He was still trying to come up with an answer when Clint abruptly sat up and filled the awkward silence. 

“Or not. I’m fine if you want this to be a one-off. Doesn't have to change anything. No problem.” The words were light and easy, with no hint that Clint cared either way. He had grabbed his pants off the floor and slipped his legs in, then stood, pulling them up as he went.

Bucky’s eyes had swept over the long expanse of Clint’s tanned and freckled back, and skated over the scar on his right trapezius - an amorphous, red mess of an exit wound that he knew had a small, corresponding entry-wound on the front. It was just one of the many scars on Clint’s body that Bucky had been obsessed with, wondering how Clint had come by them. He’d seen them a lot, in the gym, in safehouses, when Barton randomly walked around without his shirt on (which was far too often for Bucky’s comfort), and he’d badly wanted to touch them. He kicked himself for forgetting while he’d had Clint naked and pliable under him, but they’d been ignored in the distracted frenzy of their first time. Just the thought of exploring Clint’s body and touching the marks that make him unique, had the blood thrumming through Bucky again. And the thought of _not_ having the chance to do it, made something shift restlessly inside of him.

Clint had grabbed his dirty shirt off the floor, but before he could put it on Bucky had made a decision. He rolled onto his side and propped his head in his hand, setting his best charming smile on his face. “We can do it again.” Clint had turned and Bucky slid his fist provocatively up and down his thickening cock. “We can do it again right now, if you want.” He grinned.

There was an almost imperceptible beat before Clint had barked a laugh, his eyes gleaming. “Man, I got too many years on me and no super soldier serum, so I’m cooked. But I can help you out with that.” He had grabbed Bucky’s foot and yanked him so his legs were hanging off the bed. Bucky yelped and Clint grinned, then he dropped to his knees between Bucky’s legs. That had been nearly a year ago. 

Since then, they’d fucked like they played and worked: intense, hard, and pushing their limits. And they never talked about it again.

* * *

A car turns the corner and shakes Bucky out of his memories, and he pushes himself further into the shadows. He reaches up and slides a finger under his ballcap. It comes away red, but the blood is tacky - not slick and wet - so the bleeding has nearly stopped. He starts moving again and tries to piece together how and why everything had gone to hell.

He and Clint had arrived in Lisbon the night before last, after three days of near constant moving, hopscotching around the Iberian Peninsula before arriving at their safehouse. That first night, they both had some pent-up energy from too many hours on planes and trains, so they’d fucked it out in two rounds of athletic sex. After the second time, Clint crashed almost immediately, and Bucky sat in the next room, reading, and trying not to let his eye’s wander to the where he’d left the door open a crack so he could see Barton. It was idiotic - that way lay madness – but he couldn’t stop his gaze from repeatedly seeking out Clint's messy hair, the freckled bridge of his nose.

The next day, they wandered around their op site without stopping or commenting, both of them casually taking in all the details that they couldn’t get from two-dimensional images on a computer screen. They hadn't hung around, moving on to the city center before making their way east to the Santa Apolonia train station to silently scope their back-up departure point.

They grabbed a couple cups of coffee and walked outside, leaning on a railing and watching as a tall ship with enormous masts pulled into port. It was a beautiful ship, and the signage on the dock advertised it as ‘not your standard cruise, but an ocean adventure’. Bucky didn’t understand why people enjoyed traveling by ship. He hated boats of all kinds, always got seasick. 

They walked along the water’s edge and eventually found a quiet spot. Clint stretched out in a patch of sunny grass like a damned cat and fell asleep. It was distracting as hell and Bucky had to force himself not to stare. Bucky sat quietly and watched the water. He knew he should stop - that he should keep the friendship and the comradery and the missions, but take the sex out of the equation, because it was eating a little piece of his soul every day to have Clint, but not in the way he really wanted. He _knew_ it, but he also knew that he'd keep taking it as long as it was on offer.

When the sun started to set, Bucky had sighed and nudged Clint to wake him up. They left the water, and, after stopping at a local market, they had meandered back to their safehouse. Over a dinner of broiled fish, potatoes, and salad, Clint had told Bucky about the only time Strike Team Delta had been in Lisbon, and how they’d ended up spending the better part of an afternoon in a cemetery when their mission had been scrapped at the last minute.

After dinner, they'd fucked again. This time, when Clint fell asleep, Bucky disregarded his better judgement and stayed in the bed for most of the night, spending the better part of it watching Clint. Shortly before dawn, he creeped into the other bedroom and flopped onto the bed, starfishing on his back and staring at the ceiling. Eventually he drifted off, catching a few hours of sleep before Clint started rattling around in the kitchen making coffee.

They had eaten breakfast with little conversation, both of them focused on the mission ahead and reading, again, through the briefing for the op. It was all pretty routine: Clint would cause the distraction, allowing Bucky to get the files from the computer. They’d make their way back to the safehouse separately. They’d grab their gear, hop on a train to the airport, and with luck, be back in New York in time for breakfast the next day.

It did not go as planned.

As soon as Bucky had stepped outside with the flash drive, he saw a muzzle flash and dove to his right. A bullet creased along his hairline but he had kept his momentum, rolling and springing up to run as more bullets pinged around him. He managed to duck into the building next door and out of view of the shooter, but not before he’d felt another bullet seer through his thigh. He hadn’t stopped. Limping heavily, he had sprinted through the building, considerable yelling at his back.

He sort of hop-skipped through the dark streets, turning randomly with no destination or plan, and just trying to get as far away from whoever was shooting at him as he could. The entire time, his thoughts were on Clint, wondering if he’d been made, too. If he was even alive. When his phone had vibrated in his pocket, and then he’d heard Clint’s voice on the other end of the call…relief wasn’t nearly a strong enough word.

Moving quickly and quietly through the streets, now, he crushes the phone in his metal hand and drops it into a fountain as he passes. He’d already ditched most everything else he’d been carrying – except the weapons, documents, and cash - even before Clint told him to; he knows his spycraft. He should have ditched the phone much sooner, but as his only connection to Clint, he hadn’t been able to bring himself to. Now that he knows Clint is okay, at least for the moment, Bucky focuses on how to get to him.

He pulls up the mental map he has of Lisbon and takes a few seconds to consider the most direct route to Prazeres Cemetery, with the least chance to encounter a lot of people. The blood on his leg isn’t particularly visible with his dark pants, but there’s a good amount of it that’s run down the side of his face and neck, and his hair is matted with it. He’d yanked his red ball cap onto his head almost immediately, but until he can stop and clean himself up, he needs to stay deep in the shadows, or he’s going to draw a lot of attention.

Unfortunately, he’d been moving in the opposite direction than he needs to, so he reverses course and starts heading southwest. His thigh is throbbing, and his head feels like it’s going to split open, but he moves as quickly as he can, wanting to catch up with Clint as soon as possible. His voice had sounded strained on the phone, and while that could definitely have been the fact that they’re running for their lives, Bucky thought he heard more in the undercurrent.

He's a little surprised when he gets to the cemetery. Clint had talked about it at length the day before, but he hadn't quite captured the scale of the place. From the outside, it seems to go on forever – he can’t see where the wall around the property stops. He guesses it’s at least a mile square. The place is locked down for the night and he's got nothing to pick the locks on the gate, but it’s not a problem; there are large trees all along the sidewalk. Bucky walks the perimeter until he finds a particularly dark spot and climbs one of them, scrambles along a thick limb over to the wall and down into the cemetery proper. He grunts as the landing jars his leg.

He limps down the first ‘lane’, looking for any sign of Clint. There are literally hundreds of mausoleums on dozens of lanes, and the place is like a maze. Clint had only mentioned one mausoleum specifically when he’d told Bucky about his previous visit; it was unusual in its pyramid shape and temple front. He assumes that’s where Clint will be waiting for him, but he has no idea where in this city of the dead it is. With no other option but to wander until he finds it, he starts a slow jog through the cemetery.

* * *

It's isn't easy for Clint to get into the cemetery. With only one operable arm, he walks the perimeter until he finds a tree with low enough hand holds that he can hike himself up, rather than have to jump. Ultimately, he has to climbed a smaller tree and hop onto the roof of a bus shelter. From there he makes the leap onto the wall of the property and eases himself over it. He spends the next three minutes leaning heavily against the wall breathing through the resulting roar of pain.

Once he’s pretty sure he won’t pass out, he pushes himself off the wall and sets out in search of the mausoleum that he hopes Bucky remembers him mentioning. It’s been years since he’s been here but he’s pretty sure of its general location relative to the entrance. It takes about twenty minutes for him to find it, but that’s more a matter of how slowly he’s moving than his poor memory.

He slides down behind one of the Doric columns and sits, the Glock in his good hand, resting on his thigh. He lets his head drop back and he closes his eyes – just for a few seconds. He listens in the dark for a familiar foot tread. It’s quiet, of course, except for the airplanes that fly over every ten minutes or so. Clint had forgotten about how this place was on the flightpath for Humberto Delgado Airport, the planes flying over low and often.

Bucky must be using that to his advantage – or possibly Clint’s more fucked up than he wants to think about - because the next thing he knows, he hears a voice.

“Clint?”

He blinks his eyes open to see Bucky squatting beside him, wearing a disconcertingly worried expression. “Oh, thank god,” Clint mumbles. 

“Jesus, Clint. You said you were mostly good.”

Clint huffs and starts to struggle to his feet. Bucky grabs his good arm and helps him up so Clint can lean against the column again. “I am. Mostly. At least three-quarters of me is fine.”

“What’s the damage?”

“Bullet in my side - not sure if it's still in there. The one in my arm definitely is. I’ll be okay.” His eyes slip closed and want to stay there, but he forces them open. “We need to get moving.” He pushes off the column and Bucky grabs his arm again. It’s dark, but now that they’re standing and Bucky is in front of him, he can see the blood on his face and neck. “What the hell, Bucky. What's _your_ damage?”

“I’m fine. Got a headache, but I can feel it healing already. Leg, too.”

“ _Leg?_ ” Clint looks down.

“Like I said, almost healed. But I need to get a better look at you.” He shifts and looks around down the line of mausoleums.

Clint shakes his head and pulls free of Bucky’s grip. “No time. Gotta keep moving.” He takes a step and wobbles, has to shoot his good hand out to brace himself on the wall of the crypt.

Bucky’s hands are instantly there, helping to steady him. “It’s not going to help the situation any if you pass out from blood loss. Hard to fade into the background if I’m carrying you around,” he says.

Clint scoffs softly as Bucky slings Clint’s good arm around his neck and starts them walking at a slow pace. He’s thinking about how not-fun it’s going to be to get back over the wall, when Bucky stops them and leans Clint against the wall of one of the cemetery’s administrative buildings, grabs the handle of a door, and busts it open with his Hydra arm.

“What…” Clint asks. More words wanted to come out but he doesn’t have the energy for it; maybe he’s lost more blood than he realized.

“Shh. Quiet.” Clint gives him a sour look, because he gets the feeling Bucky’s shushing him so he won’t argue and not because there’s really any living person around who might hear them. Still, he goes willingly when Bucky takes his arm and helps him across the threshold. Bucky leans Clint up against the wall inside the door and helps ease him to sitting. “Stay here and keep quiet. I’ll be right back.”

“You’re being awfully bossy,” Clint observes, his eyes already drifting closed. 

Bucky snorts. “You’re losing blood like a stuck pig and in no position to argue.”

It’s true. Clint gives him a disgruntled grunt before Bucky disappears down the dark hall.

He loses some time there, because he blinks and Bucky’s back, hoisting him to his feet again. An undignified sound escapes the back of his throat. "Where’re we going?”

“This way,” Bucky answers. “I found someplace I can take a better look at you.”

“You can look at me anytime you want,” Clint mumbles suggestively and manages to wiggle his eyebrows. Bucky rolls his eyes at him, but then snorts softly.

The building is only illuminated by the dim glow of emergency exit lighting, but it’s enough that they can see where they’re going. They descend a flight of stairs and when they round a corner, Clint can see light falling through an open doorway about twenty feet away.

“Almost there,” Bucky tells him.

Clint nods and keeps his feet moving forward. When they get to the bright room, he stops dead. “Oh, fuck me. Are we in a fucking mortuary?”

Bucky grimaces apologetically. “Sorry,” he says, and tugs Clint into the embalming room.

* * *

_Esta bem_ – It’s okay

 _Eu nau vou te machucar_ – I’m not going to hurt you

 _Volte para dentro_ – go back inside


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What appear to be a couple of fairly minor injuries take an unexpected turn; Clint and Bucky both struggle with Bucky's demons.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My sincerest apologies to Flawedamythyst, who has, at this point, been waiting for 5 months for me to post more of this fic. *ducks head in shame* I am so, so sorry! I was blocked there for a good long while, and then, well, our world turned upside down, didn't it? My house is suddenly full again, and I have had no time, no space, and no privacy (all of which I need) to write. But, recently, I've found some work-arounds which have allowed me to make some progress. With luck, the next chapter shouldn't be nearly as long coming.
> 
> Thanks to my awesome betas Milly and Britt, both of whom improved this chapter substantially.
> 
> Also, note the additional tags, please!

The embalming table is uncomfortable—it’s hard and narrow. Clint shifts, bending one leg and tilting it out to the side. It doesn’t help and makes him feel off-balance with his knee hanging out there with no support. He shifts back. The cold of the stainless-steel seeps through his clothes. Despite the fact that his left side feels like it’s on fire, Clint shivers.

His eyes track Bucky as he rifles through every drawer and cabinet in the embalming room searching for supplies, tossing them haphazardly on a tall tray table on wheels as he goes. He’s not sure if Bucky is looking for specific things, or just grabbing anything that might be potentially useful. He can’t be bothered to ask. Bucky’s moving fast, and Clint is only half paying attention—more focused as he always is, on Bucky’s controlled but graceful movement, his expressive face—but he’s pretty sure he sees scalpels, suture materials, IV needles and tubing, alcohol, towels.

There’s an unbelievably bright light directly above him and his head is starting to throb. “Any way you can turn the lights down?” He lifts his good arm to slice a shade for his eyes with his hand.

The clattering stops and Bucky turns, eyes moving from Clint, to the lights, to the switches on the wall. “Sorry. It’s pretty much all or nothing.”

Clint sighs and slings his right arm over his eyes, covering half his face. It’s uncomfortable in the bulky leather jacket he’s wearing. Still, they’re lucky to be someplace where there are at least some useful supplies, and in a basement, so they can even have the lights on at all. When things had gone FUBAR for him and Nat in Tunisia a handful of years back, she’d had to patch him up in a barn in the dark. That experience earned him a truly spectacular scar on his left thigh and a healthy appreciation for antibiotics.

Bucky continues to work his way down the cabinets, and Clint occasionally hears something new drop onto the tray. Across the room, Bucky opens a drawer, curses under his breath, then slams the drawer shut.

He lifts his arm fractionally from his face. “What?”

“There’re no meds,” Bucky spits, opening the drawer and slamming it again. “Not even a _fucking ibuprofen_.”

Clint snorts. “I don’ think people who end up in a mortuary usually need ‘em.” He resettles his arm and resigns himself to some painful wound treatment. “I’ll be fine,” he says, not wanting Bucky to take any more burden onto himself than he already carries. Besides, Clint’s good at dissociating from pain. He’s had a lifetime of experience doing it, starting with the beatings his dad gave him and continuing on through the various foster homes he and Barney landed at. He’d suffered at least a half dozen broken bones in the circus, and countless injuries with SHIELD, some of those particularly nasty and painful. There are fewer of them with the Avengers, because there he has three teammates who can literally catch him if he falls. But mentally removing himself from pain is a skill he can still easily tap into. It’s like riding a bike.

Bucky pushes out a frustrated breath and wheels the squeaky tray table over next to where Clint’s lying. Once there, Clint can hear him moving things around, no doubt applying some organization to the pile he’s thrown together.

He knows his jacket and shirt need to come off, so without waiting for Bucky to ask, he grits his teeth and maneuvers to sitting. It’s awkward with only one functioning arm, and Bucky stops what he’s doing and makes to help. Clint waves him off; he’s not hurt that bad, he can do it himself.

Bucky ignores him and grabs the end of the jacket sleeve, tugging the opposite direction as Clint pulls his right arm out. The movement jars his wounded left arm where it’s been tucked inside his jacket, and the unexpected jolt of pain causes him to suck in a sharp breath.

Bucky stops tugging. “You okay?”

Clint slowly exhales. “Yeah. Come on, keep going.” He steels himself and just manages to hold back more noises. Worry begins to worm its way into his thoughts. His main concern had been the bullet that might still be lodged in his gut, but the general discomfort on his left side has started to localize more, and it’s his arm, he realizes, that hurts like hell, the pain steadily wicking from his elbow to his fingertips. It’s pain that’s intensifying and that he’s actually having a hard time ignoring. He looks at the offending limb—it’s more swollen than he would have expected.

Bucky tosses Clint’s jacket on the floor, then grabs some surgical scissors off the tray and carefully cuts Clint’s black Henley off of him. It’s hard to see the blood on the dark material, but there’s no doubt that it’s wet and heavy with it when Bucky drops it on the floor and it lands with a wet squelch. The scissors clang onto the tray as Clint uses his good arm to ease himself back down to lying and closes his eyes. By the time he’s prone again, he has to ball his right hand into a fist to stop it from shaking.

Bucky leans in to get his first look at Clint’s wounds. Without comment, he gently sets his left palm on the bare skin of Clint’s stomach as he squints at Clint’s side. Clint’s eyes snap open but stay focused upward, squinting hard against the bright light above him. The touch of Bucky’s surprisingly warm metal hand is feather-light, and despite everything else going on, Clint’s stomach flutters. He knows it doesn’t mean anything; it’s a balance point, somewhere for the hand to rest, nothing more. Bucky probably doesn’t even realize he’s touching Clint.

His attention narrows down to the small movements as Bucky unconsciously ghosts his hand across Clint’s skin. Bucky never touches him like this. When they touch each other—whether they’re sparring or fucking—it’s always hard and rough. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. They have great chemistry; their sex is fan-fucking-tastic. It’s raw, voracious, physical sex, and more often than not, Clint comes like a firehose. But Clint’s been thinking lately that maybe that’s a thing he doesn’t need all the time.

Maybe it’s a thing he doesn’t _want_ all the time.

Clint doesn’t want his mind to go there—he sure as hell has better things to be worrying about—but sometimes his fucking brain couldn’t care less what he wants. He can’t stop himself from imagining what it would be like if Bucky touched him like this sometimes. Tender instead of rough, a loving touch instead of only frenzied fucking. Goosebumps rise on Clint’s skin despite the flames of discomfort licking at his body. He turns his face away and lets out a silent, shuddering breath.

Bucky’s hand freezes where it lies on Clint’s abdomen, an instant later, it’s gone altogether. “You okay?”

The words are a whip-crack in the largely silent room and Clint forces himself to turn his head back to Bucky. He’s standing upright now, his concerned eyes staring intently at Clint. He wonders what it would be like to cup Bucky’s face in his palm, brush his thumb across his sharp cheekbone, place soft kisses at the corner of his mouth.

“Fine,” he answers, forcing his voice into neutral.

Bucky’s gaze shifts and skates down his body. Clint shudders again. “You’re cold,” Bucky says.

“Table’s metal.” The words are tight, like something’s stuck in Clint’s throat. “I’ll be alright.”

Bucky strips off his jacket. “Here, at least let me…” He trails off as he drapes the leather over three-quarters of Clint’s torso, leaving only enough exposed to continue examining his wounds. The jacket smells like Bucky.

“Thanks,” Clint mumbles.

Bucky leans in again and his hand returns, but this time it’s resting on the jacket, and yes, Clint’s warmer, but, ridiculously, he would rather be cold and have the touch.

“It’s through-and-through,” Bucky says. “Looks like maybe it just got the outer layer of muscle.” He sounds relieved.

Clint’s relieved, too. Gut wounds carry the very real danger of sepsis. “’S good,” he slurs.

Bucky’s eyes dart up to his. “Hey, stay with me, huh?”

Clint obeys, blinking a few times, trying to push back the creeping sluggishness.

“Lemme take a quick look at your arm, and then I’ll get you patched up.” Bucky peers at Clint’s bloody limb. “You’re lucky those guys were terrible shots.”

Clint can tell he’s just trying to center him, keep him awake. He huffs, playing along. “Right? Who _hired_ ‘em? Missed th’ kill shot twice on me and…worse ‘n you.”

“Or I’m just that good,” Bucky retorts absently from where he’s hunched over, completely focused on the second bullet hole. 

“Yeah,” Clint sighs as every insecurity he’s been carrying around since he was a kid comes flying home to roost. 

Bucky’s eyes flash up to his, and this close, it’s difficult for Clint to maintain his façade of indifference. He pulls his arm from under the jacket and flops it over his eyes again, hiding from the intense blue scrutiny. 

“Hey.” Clint feels a light tap on his good hand and lifts his arm an inch. Bucky’s expression is soft, but his eyes are serious. “I was kidding. I got lucky. That’s all.”

“Sure,” Clint says, “I know.” He flashes the best grin he can muster before ducking back behind the protection of his arm.

There’s a pause and then Bucky breathes out an audible breath, and Clint has no idea what he’s thinking. A second later he says, “I need to rotate your arm a bit.”

Clint keeps his face covered and grunts his assent.

Bucky’s hands are careful when he touches Clint’s arm, but when he lifts, Clint can’t stop an even sharper intake of breath, this time accompanied by a choked sound from the back of his throat.

Bucky freezes. “Sorry.” When Clint doesn’t respond—just pants through clenched teeth—he says, “Clint?”

“’S okay,” Clint grinds out. “Jus’ hurt more than I expected.” He flicks his fingers at Bucky, beckoning him on. When Bucky hesitates, he adds, “Go ahead,” and braces for it.

“I’ll try to be quick,” Bucky says, and after another beat, he rotates the injured limb with a steady hand.

By the time Bucky sets his arm back down onto the table, Clint’s got the jacket on his chest in a death-grip, and the heel of his right boot is kicking ineffectually at the stainless-steel slab. “Oh, _fuck_ ,” he whimpers on an exhale, and a near-hysterical, wet laugh punches out of him. Something is wrong. Something is so fucking wrong, but he can hardly think around the blinding agony shooting through his arm. He blinks, and tears slide down the sides of his face.

As soon as he can rein in control, he lifts his head to glance at his arm, and then at Bucky, whose expression is grave. Clint drops his head back onto the table with a ‘thunk’ and squeezes his eyes shut, forcing out the last of the moisture. “That bad, huh?” His voice is gravelly.

“It’s bad,” Bucky affirms. “I gotta take care of this.” There’s hesitancy there, regret.

Clint is drenched in sweat, and shivering hard. “Can you—" He stops when another sharp jolt of pain rockets up his arm unprovoked, catching him off-guard, and causing his alarm to ratchet up. He pants through it, says, “Maybe s…start on m’ side, huh? I’m…I don’ wanna pass out here. That just seems…like tempting fate too…too much.” He tries for a laugh but it falls well short.

Bucky’s quiet for a few seconds. “Yeah, alright. I’ll take care of your side and then I’ll…figure out what to do about your arm.”

It sounds to Clint like there’s something Bucky isn’t saying, but he can’t think clearly enough to consider what it could be. Instead he just hums in relief.

Bucky’s footsteps recede and a moment later, the sink turns on. Clint has a brief reprieve while Bucky washes his hands, and he tries to let himself drift, to rest before the inevitability of what comes next. But his mind is racing, trying to think through the thick fog of pain, continually circling back to the fact that he needs two functioning arms to use his bow, and the way things are looking—and feeling—it’s going to be a long time before he’s useful again.

Bucky steps back to the embalming table, and Clint hears the telltale sound of gloves being snapped into place.

“Hey,” Bucky says softly.

Clint flicks the fingers of his right hand, where his arm has returned to shield his eyes. “Do it,” he says, just wanting to get things over with.

Bucky takes a deep breath before he starts, then blows it out. “Alright. Here we go.”

Clint hisses when Bucky pours the alcohol over the wound in his side; it’s cold and it stings. Bucky works carefully and precisely, swiping at it with a soft towel, taking care not to touch Clint’s arm at all. As gentle as Bucky is being, though, it’s still a fucking hole in Clint’s side. Clint grimaces through the expected pain. It’s manageable, though. This is manageable. 

He has plenty of experience to know that, bullet wounds being round, they’re difficult to close, so there’s no stitching it up. It will heal on its own with proper care. Since there’s not really much to be done with it, it only takes a few minutes before Bucky has it cleaned and sets everything down. “Just gotta bandage it up,” he says.

Clint nods his acknowledgment, a bit of the tension draining from his body.

There apparently aren’t any real bandages here—not the kind you need for people who are alive—so Bucky folds up some paper towels and rips off a couple long pieces of the duct tape he managed to find to secure it in place. It’s not ideal, but it’ll do.

“Done,” Bucky says.

Clint drops his right arm and settles it on his chest as Bucky shifts down the side of the table a bit and bends so he’s level with Clint’s wrist. It causes Clint to tense reflexively, so he starts controlled breathing—inhaling on a 4-count, exhaling on an 8-count—to try to steady himself. Bucky frowns, and his brows draw together as he studies the arm again. It looks to Clint like his forearm and hand are noticeably more swollen than they were just a little while ago. And the color is off, his fingers are starting to turn blue. A spasm of fear ripples through him. When Bucky touches his fingers lightly to the inside of Clint’s wrist, looking for the radial pulse, Clint flinches and gasps, then lets out a long, low moan, screwing up his eyes against the pain.

Bucky’s jerks away like he’s been burned. “That hurt?” he says with some surprise.

“Yeah,” Clint answers, his voice a strangled whisper.

Bucky’s frown deepens. “I barely touched you.”

Clint puffs out a weak laugh. “Felt like you…shoved hot daggers in m’ arm.”

Bucky is quiet for a long moment.

“Buck?” Clint rasps.

His eyes flick to Clint’s with a worried expression. Really fucking worried.

Clint’s stomach sinks. “Buck?” he says again, a little more force behind it.

Bucky’s eyes fix on his. “Pretty sure this is compartment syndrome.”

“The fuck is that?”

“It can happen when an injury causes blood to get trapped, which puts pressure on the muscles in the compartment. The differential includes swelling, weak pulse, and severe pain that is out of proportion with touch,” Bucky says, and it’s a little creepy how he says it, like it’s Bucky, but someone else has taken over his mouth. “Can you still move your fingers?”

Clint almost says something flip, a joke to break the rising tension, but something about Bucky’s expression and the weirdly robotic way he just said all that, stops him. He tips his neck up and looks at his hand, tries to wiggle his fingers. He can't, but the pain of trying is still stunning, and he drops his head back with a solid crack. The sound that rises out of his throat is unstoppable.

“Bad?”

“Hurts like…a motherfucker,” Clint pants out his answer. “How…how do you…even _know_ that?”

Bucky bends down to Clint’s arm as he says, “I read medical journals.”

The flash of agony is dissipating, even so, Clint’s voice is hoarse and strained when he says, “I’d say…you’re a huge fucking nerd—which…which you are…by the way—if I wasn’t pretty sure…you’re lyin’.” 

“Oh, please, I’ve seen your stash of ‘Reviews of Modern Physics’.” Bucky stays where he is, obviously avoiding Clint’s gaze.

“Mmm…still lyin’,” Clint mutters, but the pain and that last bit of talking has sapped all his energy, so he leaves it there. He feels a cold trickle of sweat roll down his neck; his back feels slippery on the metal table.

After a moment, Bucky stands upright, and his hesitant eyes return to Clint. “Hydra,” he says. It sounds like a confession. “They programmed all kinds of information into me, to be ready for anything when they sent me out. Computers, mechanics, maps and orienteering.” He pauses. “Anatomy and medicine.”

“Okay. So…so you know how t’ fix it?”

Bucky hesitates before he says, “Yeah,” then shrugs and follows up with, “More or less.”

“Meaning?” Clint asks warily. His eyes slide shut, but when Bucky doesn’t answer for a long moment, he drags them open again. Bucky is wearing an inscrutable expression. Clint’s never known Bucky to be so reticent. “Bucky?” he presses.

“It’s in there, but…” His gaze shifts away from Clint, “it’s complicated.”

The answer hits Clint like a truck. _Shit._ “The Winter Soldier has it.”

Bucky fiddles with the things on the tray. He doesn’t confirm it. He doesn’t have to; discomfort is rolling off of him in palpable waves. Fucking Hydra. Clint wishes some of them were still around so he could have the pleasure of finding them and killing them all. Slowly. With his bare hands.

Clint _knows_ how much Bucky hates what Hydra did to him. How they pumped him up into a weapon to destroy everything pre-Hydra Bucky Barnes believed in. Has seen the barely disguised discomfort when people comment on his physical capabilities. How he almost always wears the silicone ‘flesh’ sleeve, even in the Tower when it’s just the Avengers around, how he only uses the strength in his arm when absolutely necessary. It has always bothered Clint how Bucky seems to hate parts of himself that are, to Clint, just Bucky. He’s pissed at himself now, for never considering that the stuff Hydra put in Bucky’s head would be equally disquieting for Bucky.

Clint makes an easy decision. He’s got plenty of experience with pain, it just caught him off guard earlier. Now that he knows what to expect, he can deal with it, breathe through it, swallow it down likes he’s done a million times before. He braces himself, then starts to sit up, schooling his features to keep from showing how fucking much it hurts.

Bucky hears him and turns quickly. “What are you doing?” he asks with alarm.

“C’mon, you patched me up good enough for now,” Clint grunts. “Let’s…keep moving. We’ll get clear…find a doc.”

Bucky’s hands are on him immediately, that same gentle touch that hurts nearly as much as the bullet in his arm. “Lie back down.”

Clint shakes his head and pushes past the searing pulse radiating up his arm to get fully sitting up, turning so his legs hang over the side of the table. His breath hitches and sweat pours out of him.

_“Clint.”_

Clint shakes his head. “I don’ want you to—”

“ _Stop_ ,” Bucky practically shouts.

The hand gripping Clint’s good shoulder squeezes hard enough to get his attention, but he struggles against it. “Bucky—”

“You’re gonna lose your arm if we don’t do something about this now,” Bucky grits out.

Clint does stop at that, his adrenaline spiking sharply. Sure, he’d been worried, figuring that he was in store for a longer-than-usual slate of PT once they got back home. But…losing his arm? “Wha…What?” he stammers.

“Yeah, you heard me. I know enough right now to know that’s what’ll happen. Now just…please. Lie down.” The last is said more quietly. 

Clint doesn’t move, but his mind races at frenetic speed trying to find an angle where Bucky doesn’t have to _do_ this; nauseated at the idea that the only way he comes out the other side of this situation whole, is with Bucky sacrificing a piece of himself. 

Bucky sighs—he sounds so tired—then gently, but firmly, forces Clint back down to lying.

“Fuck,” Clint says, giving in and hating himself a little for it, because he knows, deep inside, that there's not much he wouldn’t do to save his arm. “’M sorry, Buck.”

“Don’t be an idiot,” Bucky says, and shifts around to organize the items on the table, changing the positions of things, then switching them back. After a minute of that, he drops his head and sighs. “I’m gonna need a minute to get at those memories,” he says with obvious dread.

Clint's guilt settles in like an old friend. “’M not goin’ anywhere.”

“Okay,” Bucky murmurs quietly, though it seems aimed more at himself than at Clint. Bucky’s eyes slide shut and the room is silent except for the soft, audible rasp of Clint’s breathing. He can see Bucky’s eyes, vibrating back and forth beneath his lids, just like in a goddamned movie. A few moments later, his eyes flip open.

Clint’s blood runs cold at the vacant stare that greets him. “Bucky…”

Bucky ignores him. “You’ll need a tourniquet,” he says flatly. He looks around, then snatches Clint’s discarded shirt from the floor. He tears a long, two-inch-wide strip, deftly threading it under and around Clint’s arm, just above his elbow, tying a loose knot. He scans the items on the table for a second, then picks up a clamp and slides it under the fabric, twisting it once. It’s not tight yet, but Clint winces from the minute jostling of his arm.

The words are wooden, distant, when Bucky says, “This is going to hurt.”

“Story o’ my life,” Clint mumbles, placing the arm over his face again, as though not seeing what’s happening will somehow keep the pain at bay. He takes as deep a breath as the hole in his side allows, and clenches his teeth. “Okay.”

It happens fast. The twisting is smooth and the agony immediate, crashing over him like a tidal wave and stealing the air from his lungs. His arm flies off his face without conscious thought, hand clawing ineffectively at his tormenter. He hears a scream tear from his throat as darkness barrels forward, and in the space of a heartbeat, it envelopes him completely.

* * *

Dimly, behind the Soldier’s façade, Bucky is relieved when Clint passes out. It will make this easier, not to be distracted by how it’s _his_ hands that cause Clint to scream like that.

He continues twisting the clamp until Clint’s skin pinches and strains against the fabric, then wedges the end of it under Clint’s arm to hold it secure. He returns to the sink, rips off the old gloves, scrubs his hands again, then snaps on a new pair. Stepping over to the embalming table, he pauses and closes his eyes for a few seconds, quickly rerunning the steps in his head.

He doesn’t know exactly how he accesses the memories that Hydra programmed into him. He had had to dig for these. He'd taken a breath, closed his eyes on the exhale, then just… _pulled_. It was only a matter of a few moments before the information was there, and now he can visualize every step of the procedure, every cut he’s going to need to make.

Mostly he tries to avoid utilizing what Hydra gave him. He understands it’s a valuable skillset, but it always makes his stomach turn when he purposefully digs for Hydra-embedded data in his brain. He knows that the line is blurry, and that sometimes knowledge simply bleeds over, like it did when he diagnosed Clint’s compartment syndrome. He didn’t have to go looking for that information, it was just there. But he also knows for a fact that the only way he had it in his head at all was because of those assholes. It makes him sick to consider that if he’s able to save Clint’s arm, it’s going to be thanks to them, but he can’t remember a time that he’s ever been so grateful to have their knowledge.

He tries to shake away the cognitive dissonance in his head. He’s Bucky; he’s _not_ the Winter Soldier. But when he digs like this, when he uses what Hydra gave him, he can feel his affect go flat, and it makes his stomach churn. Fighting the nausea, Bucky opens his eyes again and looks at Clint’s arm, he can see that his hand is fading from blue to almost white now. That’s probably at least partly due to the tourniquet, but added to the fact that Clint couldn’t move his fingers earlier, it means they’re running out of time if there’s going to be any hope of Clint retaining full function.

He pours alcohol over all of Clint’s forearm and hand, then picks up the scalpel, removes it from its sealed packaging, and bends to the task. There’s no hesitation before he makes an incision from Clint’s elbow to his palm; there doesn’t need to be, he knows exactly what he needs to do. He avoids as many of the large veins as he can, but there’s no cutting around all of them. The tourniquet helps, but there’s still a small amount of active bleeding, plus the large volume of blood that has been trapped in his arm causing the problem in the first place.

The skin splits open easily, pulled apart by the swelling in the limb. He can see a few small white fragments among the muscle and tendons near the entry point, and he knows the bullet must have hit bone. Even with the arm opened up, there’s enough active bleeding and pooled blood that it obscures his view. Still, he continues, working almost entirely by feel to slice smoothly through the facia to relieve the pressure that would kill Clint’s muscle. He works with the Winter Soldier’s fluid efficiency—his movements more effortless than Bucky Barnes’—and it doesn’t take more than a few minutes to complete the procedure.

Once the pressure is relieved and the danger appears past, Bucky returns to where he had felt the bullet a moment earlier and easily excises it with a flick of the scalpel. He uses the sutures to tie off the worst of the bleeding, then blots out as much blood as he can with a clean towel. With the bleeding slowed, he manipulates Clint’s wrist back and forth, checking to make sure the muscles bunch and release without restriction—they do. He quickly picks out the bone fragments he can see, then releases the tourniquet. He watches for a moment, and, satisfied at the lack of new bleeding and the gradual pinking up of Clint’s fingers, he sets down his tools. He can’t suture the skin back together because there's still too much swelling, so he wets a towel and wraps Clint’s arm in it, adds a dry towel around that, then uses more strips from Clint’s shirt to hold it all together.

He glances at the IV tubing he’d placed on the tray and considers. He scans the bloody rags, the table, the floor, Clint’s clothes, the gloves he’s wearing. His brain analyzes the volume of blood that he can see, and adds more to account for what he can’t see: his first pair of gloves, and what Clint would have lost on the way to the cemetery before he had time to stop for a few seconds to make sure he wasn’t leaving a blood trail. It’s a considerable amount, but his brain calculates that it’s not so much that he shouldn’t be able to recover the blood volume fairly quickly, given his overall physical condition. Still, Bucky waffles. Clint’s deathly pale, and the two of them have compatible blood types. On the other hand, he has no idea what the serum in his blood might do to Clint; it could help, but for all he knows, it could make things worse. He checks Clint’s pulse; it’s steady and not too rapid, so that decides to leave it for now. But he does stash the needles and tubing in his jacket pocket in case transfusing his blood to Clint looks more necessary later.

He takes a step back and rips off the bloody gloves, tossing them onto the tray. He removes his outer shirt, removes the right sleeve, then carefully works the altered garment onto Clint's body. With the remainder of Clint’s Henley, he fashions a makeshift sling and immobilizes the arm. With Clint unconscious, it’s awkward, and Bucky has to take great care to support Clint’s lolling neck and not overextend his arms. It’s probably more difficult than the surgical procedure he just preformed.

On a quick circuit through a few of the adjacent offices he gathers what miscellaneous clothes he can find, and scavenges a half-full bottle of ibuprofen and a couple individual packets of acetaminophen. He returns to roll Clint and lay four lab coats under him to try to keep the creeping cold of the table at bay, then drapes the three sweaters and two jacket that he found over him to help keep him warm and hopefully prevent shock.

With nothing else to be done for Clint, Bucky closes his eyes and slams the door on the Soldier. His world tilts sideways and he reels, stumbling backward until he hits the cupboards, sliding down them onto the floor. He wraps his arms around his bent knees and ducks his head, sucking in gasping breaths, waiting out the bout of vertigo and pushing back against hyperventilating. A metallic taste floods his mouth, sending him scrambling upright again, barely reaching the sink in time for it to catch what had remained of his dinner. He coughs and wretches convulsively for long minutes, until there’s only bile coming up and his empty stomach is contracting violently. He knows he’s Bucky, he’s _not_ the Winter Soldier, he tells himself again. But Clint’s lying on a fucking metal table with blood all over him, and even though he believes, at his core, that what he did helped Clint, there’s no denying that most of the blood Bucky sees arrived via Bucky’s hands.

This is Clint. This is too fucking close to his worst nightmare.

When his stomach finally stops rebelling, he sits back down for a few minutes to shake the last of the Soldier from his head. He spares five minutes to address the wounds on his leg and scalp; they’re rapidly healing, so he only cleans them and doesn’t bother with anything else. He wants to give Clint time to rest and hopefully recuperate a bit, so he turns his attention to the mess they’ve made. It takes the better part of an hour to clean and disinfect the room, returning it to as close to its previous condition as possible, save the table where Clint’s lying.

When he finishes, he stands next to Clint and watches. Clint looks peaceful, if still pale, except for a crease between his brows. Bucky can’t stop himself from sliding his thumb over the line, pushing at it to smooth it out and make it disappear. He cards his fingers through Clint’s hair a couple of times before he catches himself and quickly withdraws his hand. As much as he might wish otherwise, it’s not his prerogative.

Bucky makes himself step away and returns to the spot on the floor, settling in to wait.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Your thoughts and comments are always, always appreciated and really do help motivate me.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, pandemics suck. Besides for the more important reasons, I've never had to work so hard, to produce so little, so slowly. My deepest apologies to the recip of this fic. On the bright side, my household has finally emptied, returned to normal, which should mean I'll have more time to focus on writing, so I'm hopeful that the rest of this won't be so long coming.
> 
> Thanks a ton to Milly and Britt for the support on this chapter. I changed and added a lot after getting this chapter back from them, so glaring errors are definitely all mine.
> 
> I am all on board with the whole embedding photos thing. Below, enjoy a view of Prazeres Cemetery in Lisbon. It is really just a tiny corner of the massive cemetery, but it's just to give you a feel for what the place looks like.

Bucky presses the cheap burner phone to his ear. “Nat,” he says, urgent and low. It’s a little before dawn, and he’s pretty sure there’s no one else around, but he’s careful, nonetheless.

The pause is almost imperceptible, before, “Bucky?”

“Yeah.” As he talks, his eyes scan around the crypt, taking in every detail. The interior is all marble, with a narrow band of windows high on each side wall. There’s enough ambient light from the moon and stars filtering through them that he can see the space. The only things inside are two stone sarcophagi, unadorned except for the names, and birth and death dates of their occupants, written in a flourishing Gothic script. The door is cast metal; it had been ornate on the exterior, but it’s smooth on the inside. The whole thing is remarkably free of dust—it must be tightly sealed—but there is a subtle, dry smell that reminds Bucky of rotting leaves. This whole place makes him uncomfortable; it feels ominous, and too much like foreshadowing. Still, it had been a smart move on Clint’s part to come to the cemetery; it’s unlikely they’ll be looked for here, and even if they are, if their pursuers started breaking into the hundreds of crypts, it would not go unnoticed. 

“Where’s Clint?” 

Bucky is just getting to understand the nuance in Natasha’s voice. The words are calm, but he’s sure he hears a fine edge to them, the tiniest hint at a change in stress level. “He’s here. He’s…resting.”

“Unconscious?” This time, the edge isn’t so fine, and her concern is obvious.

Bucky sighs. “No.” His eyes cut to where Clint is slumped in the wheelchair. “He’s just asleep.”

“How bad?”

Bucky considers it for a second. “I think he’s okay for now. We had some trouble with his arm, but I think I was able to take care of it.” He hopes that’s true, anyway.

The brief silence on the other end of the line speaks volumes. Or probably it would to Clint; Bucky may be starting to understand the nuances of Nat’s voice, but he hasn’t yet become fluent enough in her silences to know what it means. 

Whatever it means, Natasha doesn’t elaborate on what she’s thinking, instead she cuts to the chase. “What do you need?”

“Your eyes and ears. And an exfil, but we won’t be able to move very quickly or spontaneously.”

“Are you safe?”

“As we can be. You two came here when you were here on an op,” Bucky tells her, hoping she’ll understand where they are holed up with just that as a clue.

“We saw some interesting houses,” she says quickly. Bucky knows she gets it and smiles at her misdirection. Anyone potentially listening would probably start looking for them in the residential areas of Lisbon. “Do you still have your back-up passports?”

“Yeah, but it’d be better if we didn’t have to use them.”

Natasha makes a small noise of acknowledgement, then, “Give me an hour.”

He opens his mouth to say ‘thanks’, but she’s already disconnected the call. As he shoves the cell phone into his front pocket, it clacks against the USB drive that’s already there, and his fingers go to it automatically. There’s a lot more he needs to tell Natasha eventually, but not over a non-secure line. 

He’s still pondering what he’d seen of the files on the flash drive as his eyes sweep over Clint for the tenth time since they broke into the crypt. He sees the tiniest flicker of movement in Clint’s neck, and knows he’s awake.

“I c’n move quickly if I need to,” Clint grumbles, not yet opening his eyes.

Bucky takes a seat on the floor near him, leaning against the wall. The space at the back where they’re sitting, behind the sarcophagi, is tight, and Clint’s wheelchair takes up most of the room, so Bucky has to keep his knees bent. “Well, let’s hope we don’t need to.” 

Clint grunts and then shifts, sitting up straight and tipping his neck back and forth, no doubt trying to work out the kinks from sleeping while slumped over in a wheelchair.

Once Clint had roused in the mortuary, Bucky had checked him over and they were both enormously relieved that Clint could move his fingers, and that the pain in his arm was within expected ranges for having a broken bone and the limb flayed open. Yes, he was still in pain, but it wasn’t unreasonable, all things considered. He’d still been slightly out of it, so Bucky had bundled him into the wheelchair he’d found in the lobby, quickly cleaned the embalming table, and then wheeled him out to the cemetery. 

They’d found a crypt in an out of the way corner, far from the public entrance—one with windows up high to let light in, but none that were low enough that anyone would be able to see them inside—and he’d easily picked the lock. As much as he didn’t want to, he’d been forced to leave Clint there to make a quick run to an all-night convenience store where he’d picked up a cheap burner phone, more pain relievers, a roll of gauze, a real splint and sling for Clint’s arm, and some energy bars and a six pack of bottled water. 

He’d returned to find Clint dozing and had called Natasha. 

“Here,” Bucky says, cracking open a bottle of water and reaching across the space to hand it to Clint. “Try to drink it all.”

Clint huffs. “Yes, mom.”

Bucky ignores him. He’s not going to apologize for trying to take care of Clint. He unwraps one of the protein bars and holds it ready for Clint to finish the water. It takes several minutes, as Clint only takes small sips at a time. When he finally drains the last of it, they wordlessly exchange the empty bottle for the food. 

Clint sighs deeply, then takes a bite of the protein bar and chews slowly. “You see anything out there?” he asks after swallowing.

“I did a quick scout of the train station. It’s heavily covered.” Bucky tears open his own protein bar.

“You sure no one saw you?”

Bucky gives him a withering glance, and Clint shoves another bite of the protein bar into his mouth, a small laughing escaping around it. After the last few hours, it’s a relief to hear.

After he eats a couple more bites, Bucky pulls a bottle of Tylenol from the bag and cracks it open, shaking two pills into his hand. He passes them to Clint who pops them into his mouth and dry swallows them, then chases them down with a few sips from a fresh bottle of water that Bucky hands him. 

“Thanks,” Clint says quietly, then wedges the mostly full bottle between his thighs, fumbles to wrap up the rest of the protein bar one handed, and sighs, closing his eyes again.

Once Bucky has eaten a few of the bars and drunk three bottles of water, he unpacks the splint and sling he bought, and apologetically nudges Clint back to wakefulness. He carefully unknots and discards the makeshift versions from the mortuary that are immobilizing Clint’s arm. More light is starting to seep in through the windows as day breaks in Lisbon, and he sets to work restabilizing Clint’s arm. He wants like hell to unwrap it completely and take a closer look. But the bleeding seems to have stopped since there’s no strike-through on the towels, and it would be foolish to risk it in a crypt that’s miles from sterile, so he leaves it. 

He works quickly and methodically to rewrap the arm with fresh gauze, trying to ignore the insistent voice in the back of his mind that reminds him that the Winter Soldier had done this to Clint. That _he_ had done this to Clint. 

“Stop it,” Clint snaps, and Bucky freezes, darting his gaze upward. Clint rolls his eyes. “Not _that_.” He gestures at Bucky’s hands. “Stop blaming yourself. You saved my arm.”

Bucky sighs and continues winding the gauze around the splint and Clint’s arm. “I know,” he says, even as he continues to brood. He _does_ know that if he hadn’t done what he had, Clint’s arm wouldn’t have remained viable for long. He just wishes that he hadn’t had to open up the part of his brain that the Soldier resides in to do it—that Clint hadn’t had to see the part of him that’s dark and evil and festers inside of him like a cancer.

“ _Bucky,_ ” Clint says quietly, still reading his thoughts.

Bucky darts a glance upward and flashes a weak smile, deflecting further talk about it by pulling the sling out of the bag. “Come on, let’s get this on you.” 

After he eases Clint’s arm into the new support, he returns to his spot against the wall and they both sit quietly and wait, resting for whatever comes next. He doesn’t look, but he can feel Clint’s eyes on him just the same. 

Fifty-three minutes after Bucky had disconnected the call with Natasha, the phone vibrates where he’s set it next to him on the marble floor, a small buzzing, no louder than a fly would make, but Clint startles at the sound, wincing as the movement jostles his arm. 

Bucky frowns: Clint never startles.

He flips open the phone and puts it to his ear, never taking his eyes from Clint. It’s fully light out now and Bucky has no idea when people might be walking around the cemetery, so he keeps his voice just above a whisper. “Have something for us?”

“I do,” Natasha says, “but you’re not going to like it.”

She’s right, he doesn’t. It’s a crazy plan, one he tries to argue the merits of it, but she ignores him and continues to rattle off the details. When she signs off, he disconnects with a muttered curse and an emphatic press of the ‘End’ button. 

“She’s putting us on a boat, isn’t she?” Clint says. He looks tired, but a small grin has crept up at the corners of his mouth. 

Bucky’s dislike of the water and any related conveyance vehicle is not a secret. “She says she’s sorry, but I don’t believe her,” he grumbles. “It’s the most ridiculous exfil plan ever.”

“If Nat came up with it, it’s a good plan.”

“Yeah?” Bucky raises his brows at Clint challengingly. “She wants us to get on that fucking tall ship that was docked down at the pier the other day.”

“The…schooner?”

“Yeah, schooner, whatever. It’s fucking ridiculous.”

Clint furrows his brow, and Bucky can tell that he’s surprised by Nat’s choice. “What else did she say?”

Bucky sighs. “The airport and train stations are being tightly monitored. And the roads out of town. She could find us a route out on foot, but…that’s not a good option at the moment.” 

“They must be watching the pier, too.”

It says a lot that Clint doesn’t even try to argue that he could hoof it out town if need be. Bucky’s never known him to not push himself hard—too hard sometimes—so the fact that he isn’t even suggesting they try is worrying.

“They are. But there are a couple of CCTV blind spots she thinks she can thread us through, and she’ll drop a diversion at the right moment. And she says cruise ships usually have fairly lax security, even in the boarding process.”

Clint nods thoughtfully and considers. A moment later he says, “Maybe we find a place to wait things out, make ‘em think we slipped by them. It’d probably only take a few days for them to loosen things up.”

That’s the last choice as far as Bucky’s concerned. Yes, he’s pretty sure he could find them a secure bolt hole for a week or longer if necessary. But Bucky’s biggest concern, besides keeping them alive, is making sure that Clint retains full use and functionality of his arm. The problem is, while he’s addressed the acute issue with Clint’s arm, he can’t be sure he did everything 100% correctly. Plus, it’s still split open and will need to be closed properly sometime in the next couple days, and that will require a skin graft, which means specialized equipment and sterile conditions. Even if they could find that, he’s pretty sure Hydra didn’t program that kind of procedure into the Soldier. No, Clint needs a real doctor, in a real hospital, as soon as possible, and they can’t get him that in Lisbon. 

He rolls his eyes. “Don’t go soft on me, Barton. We’re not skipping our best shot at getting outta here because I get a little seasick.”

Clint raises his eyebrows. “That was a pretty fast change of tune.”

Bucky makes a disgruntled noise at the back of his throat. “You’re right about Natasha. If she says this is our best option, then we go with it.” 

Clint hums his agreement but looks thoughtful. “Once we’re on a ship, our options get pretty limited.”

“Yeah,” Bucky agrees, and they both fall silent, considering their equally shitty options. Bucky tips his head back against the wall of the crypt and watches Clint through the corner of his eye for several minutes, ruminating over the fact that the first thing out of Natasha’s mouth had been a question about Clint’s status. 

When he has sufficiently twisted himself up into knots over it, he opens his mouth and says, “So, you and Nat…” It’s a stupid thing to ask—he knows he might not like the answer—but it’s something he’s wondered about for too long. The implication that there’s something more between Clint and Natasha than their history as SHIELD partners is there in how intimately they know each other, read each other, worry about each other. But what Clint and Bucky have been up to lately is no secret, and no one has given them a second look about it, so he assumes—hopes—that whatever there may be between Clint and Nat, it’s an open, loose thing. 

Clint is watching him, inscrutable, but he doesn’t answer, so Bucky pushes on. “What’s the deal with you two? You ever…?” 

Clint stares at him for another moment before he blinks and shrugs. “Yeah, sometimes. When one of us has an itch that needs scratching.” His face is a blank mask.

Apparently, Bucky’s threshold for pain is higher than he thought because he finds himself asking, “Yeah? That happen often?” 

There’s a beat before Clint gives him a slow smirk. “Not lately,” he says. “Been getting my itch scratched somewhere else, lately.” 

Bucky’s an itch to be scratched. Or a scratch for an itch. Whatever. Somehow it bothers him more than if Clint had said that he and Natasha were together. Still, he makes a show of rolling his eyes, then quickly averts them, looking down to check the weather forecast on the semi-smart phone, because it hadn’t taken him long to figure out that there’s not much that Clint misses. It’s been excellent spycraft training, hiding his feelings from Clint. When he can bring himself to look up again—when he knows nothing will show on his face—Clint is still watching him with his own impenetrable expression.

“Not much to do for now,” Bucky says evenly. “I’m going to grab a couple hours of shuteye.” He settles in the corner with his arms crossed and closes his eyes.

“Sure,” he hears Clint say. 

* * *

Bucky wakes a few hours later to find Clint watching him. “Everything okay?”

“Fine,” Clint answers, but quickly looks down to adjust his sling.

Bucky furrows his brow and tries to discern what Clint’s thinking, but he can’t parse it. Instead, he does another quick visual assessment. Clint looks mostly the same: he’s still pale, and there’s a line of grimy dampness at the edge of his hairline along his face, trailing back along his neck. Mostly, though, he looks tired. “You get any sleep?”

Clint finally looks up. “Nah. Figured I stay awake and protect the sleeping damsel.”

The grin he gives Bucky looks forced, but Bucky snorts and gets to his feet. He laces his fingers behind his back and lifts, pulling up to stretch his shoulders. His left one in particular always feels tight after long periods of inactivity. He presses the arm across his chest, using his right one to pull the stretch further. “We can’t show up for a cruise empty handed. I’m gonna go pick up a few things to outfit us.”

Clint grunts his agreement. 

Bucky digs in his front pocket and pulls out the USB drive and sets it on a small lip of one of the marble sarcophagi. His finger lingers on it for a second.

As though reading his mind, Clint murmurs, “What the hell is on that thing?” It’s obviously a mostly rhetorical question.

Bucky flicks his eyes to Clint’s. They’re dark and serious, and Bucky can read his concern over how the op had been blown, apparently from the inside, and how tightly Lisbon has been shut down in an effort to find them. Or rather, to find the USB; he doesn’t kid himself that the two of them won’t be dead the minute whoever is after them gets their hands on it. He gets distracted, mind racing with how he’s going to get Clint out of here and keep him safe, when Clint shifts and sits up higher in the chair.

“Bucky, did you look at the file?”

Mission briefings are often silent on what exactly might be in a package to be retrieved, but Bucky knows that most of the time, if able, agents will look closely enough to understand what they’re stealing. After years of being used as a pawn by Hydra, he sure as hell does. And he had. After the file had transferred, just before he’s pulled out the USB, he’d taken a few seconds to open and scan the document.

“Not thoroughly, but…” Bucky pauses, reluctant to voice what he’d seen.

“But?” Clint presses, reading Bucky and tensing up.

Bucky blows out a breath. “I only had time for a quick glance, but…it looked like a list of current Hydra operatives in Europe.”

Clint’s eyes go wide. “What the hell? That’s not…that’s not possible. Hydra’s _gone_. We took out the last of ‘em over a year ago!”

“Apparently not,” Bucky answers darkly. “Sorry, I should have told you sooner, but…we’ve been a little occupied.”

Clint waves him off and doesn’t say anything, staring at the USB and apparently absorbing the new information. 

Bucky pulls out the phone and hands it to him. “If I’m not back in two hours, you call Natasha and have her land a fucking helicopter in here if necessary.”

Clint takes it without comment and is still brooding as Bucky slips out the door.

  
  


* * *

Once Bucky’s left the crypt and disappeared into the silence, Clint settles in to wait. He should try to sleep some more, he knows, but Bucky’s information that the USB has Hydra files on it has done away with any sleep he’s going to get for now. It’s disturbing in the extreme. They knew Hydra was tenacious, of course, but they’d been _sure_ they’d wiped them all out in the months after the near destruction of SHIELD. He stares at the USB. They’ll have to leave it here and either come back for it later, or send someone after it, because if they get caught with it, they’ll be instantly dead without leverage. 

He slumps further down into the wheelchair, tries to get comfortable, tries not to think about how his arm and side are throbbing like a sonofabitch. And how fatigued he feels. He knows they’re going to have to get to the pier in a few hours, and they’re going to have to walk there because using the wheelchair or stealing a car would be putting bullseyes on their backs. He knows he’s the weak link in the chain, and that on his own, Bucky would be out of Lisbon by now—probably out of Portugal entirely. 

He closes his eyes and tries to rest. He dozes a bit, but real sleep eludes him with the way his mind is working overtime. Bucky’s out there taking risks for Clint, while Clint’s sitting inside this damned crypt, safe, in a city full of people who want to kill them. He’s as sure as he can be that no one could know this is where they’d go, because what he and Nat had shared here years ago was not something that came up in idle conversation, the cemetery tied too inextricably to what took place here. He’d mentioned it to Bucky only because being in Lisbon had triggered thoughts of his failed relationship with Natasha, and the cemetery was where things had ended for them. He’d told Bucky about the place because it was on his mind and the history was interesting, but he’d only skated over the surface, not even hinting at the whole story. 

Things had been fragile between him and Nat at the time, tiptoeing along a triad of being partners, and lovers, and trying to be something more. They’d walked through the cemetery for hours that day, doing the adult thing for once and actually talking about their feelings. They were achingly careful not to hurt each other, as they both ultimately admitted that _that_ kind of relationship wasn’t what they wanted. They loved each other—fiercely—but Clint confessed that deep down, he knew that when he found that person, they wouldn’t be a woman. Natasha revealed that she didn’t think she wanted to be in that kind of relationship; she didn’t think she would _ever_ want to be, thanks to the Red Room. They’d returned home, contented, things settled between them, continuing on as partners who fucked sometimes. Pretty regularly, in fact, when they were both in the same city, because the physical hunger they had for each other never seemed to go away.

Until recently. Bucky had shown up and they’d started fucking, and before Clint knew it, it had been months since he and Nat had fallen into bed together. He hadn't wanted to admit to himself that it was because these days his hunger was only for Bucky.

He hadn’t even realized it was happening until he and Nat were sparring one day, her circling him with a fixed intensity that his mind supplied was the same expression she sometimes had when she was on top, chasing her orgasm. He had blinked at the thought, trying to remember the last time they’d slept together. Not surprisingly, the moment of distraction had ended with Clint flat on his back, pinned by Natasha, her face hovering over his. He had leaned up to kiss her—mostly out of reflex—and she had pulled her head back a few inches, out of his reach. Clint had stopped, surprised, as she sat all the way up and said, “No, we’re done with that.”

Clint had scoffed and tugged lightly, thinking she must be kidding, but again she'd pulled away, and then stood up.

He had laid there, partly surprised, partly confused. “What are you talking about? This is…this is what we do.”

She’d held out her hand to him and he’d grasped it. “Not anymore,” she’d said off-handedly as she yanked him to his feet. With a toss of her head to get the tangled red mess out of her face, she’d turned and walked lightly toward the door.

“Nat,” he’d said, and she had stopped, turned toward him again. “Are you… Did I do something?”

“Not what you did. What you’re doing,” she’d said, though not unkindly, and there had been no anger in her voice. “Don’t play stupid, Clint. It doesn’t suit you.” With that, she’d been gone.

Clint had known what he’d done, of course. He had been sleeping with Bucky on the regular. It wasn’t like the rest of the Avengers didn’t know about it, and none of them seemed to have any problems with it. Except, it seemed, Natasha.

Article 2 of the unwritten, unspoken rules of his and Nat’s relationship clearly stated that if one of them began seeing someone else, all fucking between them ceased. They’d both stepped back from their extracurricular activities in the past, when one of them was actually dating someone. It happened now and then for both of them, but never seemed to last very long. This thing with Barnes had been going on for months, but Clint hadn’t thought that particular rule applied here, because he wasn’t “seeing” Bucky. Like Clint and Nat, he and Bucky were just fucking. Even if Clint wanted more, he’d figured that the fact that Bucky didn’t meant it still counted as just hooking up. Apparently, Nat didn’t agree with that assessment. 

Clint wasn’t sure if Nat had just added another clause to the rules that said that you could only fuck around with one person at a time for some reason, or if he’d not kept his growing feelings for Barnes well enough under wraps. 

What he should have done—the smart thing to do—would have been to stop fucking Barnes. But his heart had always been reckless and frequently kept him from doing the smart thing. He'd never even considered ending things with Bucky. But after that day in the gym, he _had_ doubled down on masking his feelings, taking care to make sure that Bucky (and hopefully everyone) wouldn’t see that Clint was in love with him. Bucky had been clear from that first time that he was in it for the sex, and while Clint may wish for more, at least with the sex, he still gets to be close to the other man. He’s fine with it. Well, maybe three-quarters fine. That last quarter he can live without if he has to. That’s what he tells himself, anyway. 

Clint forcefully disengages the thoughts and slips his right hand along his left side, gently pressing on his wound. It feels okay. A little tender, but nothing he wouldn’t expect. He wiggles the fingers of his left hand minutely and grimaces. He adjusts the sling, so it is more elevated. The pain is becoming more localized and intense, but Clint dismisses it. Of course, it’s going to hurt. It’s still a hell of a lot better than it was before Bucky cut him open. He’s never felt pain like that before. And he’s not squeamish, but when Bucky had explained what he’d had to do, how he’d had to slice Clint’s arm open from elbow to wrist to release the pressure, and then pick out the bone fragments, Clint’s stomach had lurched. 

Worse, though, was what he had seen before he lost consciousness in the mortuary. Watching Bucky switch back and forth between the Barnes he knew, and the Winter Soldier, is something Clint hopes he’ll never witness again. It had made his blood run cold to see Bucky’s usually open expression and bright eyes go blank, to hear his voice go flat. But that hadn’t been the worst of it. The worst had been Bucky’s face when he’d told Clint about it—haltingly admitting that the Winter Solder’s memories were still there in his head. His face had said more than his words, revealing reluctance, self-recrimination…shame. Clint could see how much Bucky hadn’t wanted to go there in his head—how he’d hated even the thought of it—but he’d done it anyway. For Clint. He never wants to see that expression on Bucky’s face again, and he sure as hell never wants to be the one to put it there.

* * *

Bucky shows up almost ninety minutes later, carrying a duffle bag with some stupidly bright clothes and obnoxiously-colored KEEN hiking sandals for each of them, a couple of hats, a backpack, four pocket knives, a multi-tool, a package of large bandages, a few more rolls of gauze, some medical tape, and two more burner phones.

“We need to change,” he tells Clint, already starting to strip out of the clothes he’s been wearing for the last day and a half. 

When Bucky tosses some of the clothes at him, Clint grumbles, but the corresponding smile on Bucky’s face almost takes the sting out of wearing them. He stands slowly, slightly hunched to protect the tight pull in his side. He manages to get his boots and pants off one-handed, but he needs Bucky’s help to get into the new clothes. It’s slightly humiliating, but necessary, and while Clint’s not about to let his pride get in the way of the tactical success of the mission, showing weakness like this leaves him feeling raw and exposed. 

Bucky ducks down and holds open the green and purple plaid monstrosity masquerading as shorts so Clint can step into them, then perfunctorily pulls them up and buttons and zips them. After, he loops the green polo shirt over Clint’s head, helping him thread his bad arm through the sleeve. Despite going slowly, it causes the pain to light up in his arm and side, and Clint hisses a little. Bucky’s eyes flick to his, holding there for a second before his warm hands continue their careful work. His hand brushes along Clint’s ribcage as he tugs on the bottom of the shirt so Clint can push his other arm through its hole, causing his thoughts to veer to Bucky’s gentle touches in the mortuary. He feels his face begin to heat, embarrassed by his feelings and his weakness alike, and as soon as he can, he steps away and ducks down to work the sandals onto his feet. 

“Let me help,” Bucky says, taking a step closer.

“’S okay,” Clint says quickly. “I can do it.”

Bucky seems to hesitate, then turns his attention to the USB drive. He tears off a piece of a plastic carrier bag and wraps the USB drive in it, tying it securing to protect it. Clint looks up from fiddling with his sandals to see Bucky stretch and place it on the wide lintel above the door. Clint stands and they both step back and look. In the dark interior, it’s nearly invisible--no one would notice it unless they were looking for it, and no one should be looking for it here.

Bucky programs each of the two new burner phones to the other’s number and hands one to Clint, taking the original back in exchange. They both tuck the new ones away. Bucky squats down and divides everything else they have, putting the lightest-weight items into the backpack and handing it to Clint, who rolls his eyes but takes it. The rest goes into the duffle, which Bucky hikes over his shoulder.

The cemetery is open now, so Bucky carefully cracks the door. On first inspection, there’s no one around, so he opens it a little wider and takes a longer look. He turns and nods to Clint, who hefts the backpack onto his good shoulder before they both slip out. Clint moves slowly, knowing he needs to conserve his strength and energy for the long walk ahead. He glances at the sky. The sun is blazing already, and there’s not a cloud to be seen—just his luck. He already feels wrung out and weak, and the sun is only going to sap his strength faster. He steps into the shade of a nearby tree while Bucky seals the crypt back up and takes a quick snapshot of just the door with the original burner phone, sending it to Natasha in case the two of them don’t make it. Clint watches him crush the phone in his metal hand and shove the pieces into his pocket to dispose of later. 

They walk without talking, and Clint is so focused on putting one step in front of the other that it takes him a while to realize that Bucky is taking them on a straight route right to the front gate, rather than a more circuitous one. He flexes his jaw, biting down on his desire to snap at Bucky for taking that risk; he doesn’t need coddling. Thankfully, they don't encounter anyone as they leave the cemetery.

Once they get beyond the gates, Bucky slips into the first doorway they come to and waits until Clint gets about a block ahead of him, and then crosses and follows from the other side of the street. Clint knows Bucky’s taking the rear so he can keep an eye on him, which only irritates him more.

It’s not too far to the port—maybe a mile or so—but Clint leads them on a slightly more meandering route. It’s tactically the smart thing to do, and Clint knows he has it in him to walk an extra half-mile. He also knows that the rising anger he’s feeling is more about his own failings than Bucky’s position at the rear, but still, he sets a solid pace, just to prove he can, and stews in his inadequacies. When he starts to flag about halfway there, though, he begins to regret his petulance. He has to put in real effort to keep up the pace he’s set. About a quarter mile from the port building, he finally admits to himself that he needs to rest, and he stops, leaning against a building and pretending to look at something on his phone. A second later, it buzzes, and he curses under his breath when it causes him to startle. It’s the second time in a few hours that he’s done that. The number on the screen is the only one programmed into it: Bucky. Annoyed, he connects the call.

“Are you okay?” Bucky asks immediately.

“Are you?” Clint snaps in response, too close to the edge of exhaustion to hold back.

There’s a beat before Bucky says, “Alright, you’ve made your point, so you can slow down now, and when you get to the port, sit the fuck down for a minute before you fall over.” He sounds mostly exasperated, but there’s something else in the undercurrent. Fear? 

Clint nearly turns to look in his surprise and confusion, before he catches himself and continues walking instead. He does slow his pace a little, though, as his ire and energy are both waning. He’s starting to pant noticeably, and the pain that has been pounding through his side and down his arm since they left the cemetery, is spiraling—turning sharp and radiating farther with every step. He ignores it.

As they approach the port, Bucky picks up his pace so that he’s close on Clint’s heels. Clint does find a bench and sits gratefully, while Bucky pretends to study the ship schedules nearby. 

From his perch, Clint can see a few ships, but theirs definitely stands out. The Royal Clipper is a five-masted, fully-rigged tall ship, with 4-6 sails on each mast. She’s a modern, steel-hulled ship, but clearly designed after the wooden beauties from a century or more before, and Clint can’t help but be impressed. Compared to the traditional cruise ships nearby, the Royal Clipper looks elegant and fluid. If he didn’t feel so shitty, he would probably be enamored with the whole thing. At the moment, though, all he really wants to do is get to their berth so he can collapse and sleep for the two days before they’re supposed to get off the ship in Tangier and meet Nat.

There are swarms of people coming and going to and from the port, so while it may be harder to spot Clint and Bucky in the crowd, that doesn’t mean that it’s safe for them to linger. Clint waits only until his pulse has slowed to closer to normal before he finds some store of reserves and gets himself to his feet.

The cruise terminal at Santa Apolonia in Lisbon is a low, rectangular piece of modern architecture rendered in structural concrete, which sits on a former landfill. From a distance, it looked anything but welcoming, but through the glass curtain wall, Clint can see that the sleek, modern interior is surprisingly inviting. As he approaches the main entry, he can see Bucky in his periphery, walking with his phone to his ear as he makes the call to Nat, letting her know it’s time for the distraction

The entrance doors open automatically before them, and Bucky catches Clint’s eye for a split second as they both walk casually through, skirting around a couple that has stopped and is staring at a sudden commotion on the far side of the large space. Clint’s eyes never stop scanning, looking for danger. It’s not hard to spot; he keys in on several threats, but as planned, their attention is all drawn to the fight that’s erupting across the way as well. 

They slip down the edge of the north wall exactly as Natasha directed, just out of range of the CCTV cameras. As the altercation escalates, a high-pitched scream echoes, and someone yells in Portuguese for the police. They are sauntering through the doors that lead to the gangplanks when Clint sees several people in security uniforms rushing toward the fight. 

They stroll calmly down to the queue to get onto the Royal Clipper, with Bucky now lagging farther behind and putting several people in between them. Five minutes later, Clint mumbles his alias and flashes his fake passport at a crew member, who barely glances at it. The man scans the tablet he’s holding, looking for the corresponding name on the passenger list. Clint does the same, his quick eyes taking in the manifest before the crew member can click away from the screen. Natasha has managed to reserve them two adjoining rooms; the ship must not be completely full, considering their very last-minute booking. The man smiles and hands Clint a map of the ship, pointing out where his room is located, and how to get there. 

As he turns to head up the last few steps to the ship, Clint can see that behind him, Bucky has split into a different line for his own check in. 

Natasha had told them that there would be little to no security screening at the port—including a lack of luggage screening. Still, Clint’s surprised at just how lax things are when boarding a ship heading for international waters and four different countries. Not that he’s complaining, because they’ve got five separate blades between them. He’d much prefer they have guns—better yet, his bow—but there was no way they could procure them in the short window they’d had, and with the city locked down and too many people searching for them. 

He heads directly to the cabin. His situational awareness is shot, and he barely registers his surroundings as he moves through the ship, using every bit of energy he has just to put one foot in front of the other. But he trusts Bucky to thoroughly scope out the passengers, and to familiarizing himself with the entire ship for the both of them. 

When he finally gets to his room, he’s surprised to find it bigger than he expected, with a queen-size bed, a plush chair, and a built-in dresser/writing desk. There’s a small closet to left so he opens it and drops the backpack inside, then opens the door next to it to find a surprisingly sumptuous bathroom. He figured they’d have something along the lines of what you’d find on an airplane or train, and it’s not the size of a Tony Stark en suite, but it’s sleek and modern and finished in marble, with a deep tub and glass shower next to it. He eyes them both but barely gives them a second of consideration before admitting he doesn’t have the energy for either. Instead, he unlocks and opens his side of the doors between his room and Bucky’s, then drags the chair around so he can sit with a view to both doors, and sinks down into it, sighing as he goes. He fingers the scalpel he’d slid into the bandages on the inside of his arm, the reminder that he has a weapon close to hand allowing him to relax a bit more.

His eyelids are heavy with exhaustion, but he keeps himself awake, waiting for Bucky. Eventually, he hears someone enter the room next door. He sits up a bit more, setting himself to move if necessary, but the staccato code rapped on the remaining closed door between the rooms is almost immediate. A second later, the lock on the other side disengages and Bucky is stepping through the door into Clint’s room. 

By the time he’s finished checking out the room and ogling the bathroom, Clint’s removed the sling and laid down on the bed.

Bucky pauses in the bathroom doorway. “You okay?”

He gives Bucky a vague wave of his hand, but then says, “Tired.” It’s not entirely a lie. He can feel his shirt is soaked with sweat, and his pain has escalated further, but that’s probably a result of the exertion of walking from the cemetery to the port, and the near-desperate last effort to get to the room. 

Bucky watches him carefully, then steps closer and starts to reach his hand out toward Clint’s head. 

Clint flinches away. “I’m fine,” he says with enough steel in his voice that Bucky stops. He may be in rough shape but he doesn’t need Bucky to treat him like spun glass. 

Bucky hovers for a moment before he eventually says, “Alright. I’m going to go keep an eye on things until we set sail.”

Clint grunts an acknowledgement. 

He closes his eyes and drifts, listening to the distant sounds of Bucky moving around his own room, stowing gear. A couple minutes later, he’s back and Clint hears him set something on the small table next to the bed.

“Take these, okay?” Bucky says.

Clint turns his head to see Bucky has put a glass of water and two red and blue capsules on the table, but he’s half-way to sleep and he can’t seem to keep his eyes open. “’Kay,” he mumbles. It’s another moment before he hears Bucky’s retreat, and then the quiet ‘snick’ as Bucky closes the door behind himself. He’s asleep seconds later.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're reading along with this, thanks for sticking around. Sorry again for the terrible delays on this one. The next chapter shouldn't be nearly as long coming - I just need to edit and polish. 
> 
> As always, thanks for reading, and feedback is genuinely, greatly appreciated. I continued to mess with and add to this chapter long after they retuned it, so glaring errors are absolutely my own.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The sea is calm, but Bucky and Clint encounter rough waters ahead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, fuck me. It’s 2am and I can’t sleep. Its technically Sunday so I’m posting. 
> 
> As always, thank you to my stalwart beta team of Milly and Britt, you guys are the best! 
> 
> Thought you might like to see what this ship looks like, so I imbedded a pic of the Royal Clipper at the beginning and end. :)

As Bucky leaves his room, he gives a smile and friendly nod to a grey-haired couple wrestling their luggage into their room a few doors down. He works his way to the deck and does a circuit around the ship, doing his best to blend in with the tourists as he scopes the port building and the dock. The deck is teaming with other passengers, who thrum with excitement for their coming adventure. All Bucky feels is apprehension. 

He climbs to the forecastle deck, where he can lean his forearms casually against the rail, keeping one eye on the newly embarking passengers and the other on those who are milling around. A group of them on the main deck listen attentively as a crew member points upward and explains how the massive rigging works. They chatter and ask enthusiastic questions. The only interest the tall masts hold for Bucky is the 360-degree view they could offer. Too bad he can’t climb one. 

Every twenty minutes, he loops through the entire ship, constantly scanning for threats. The ship is luxurious, which he wasn’t expecting. Its traditional exterior belies modern amenities. The upper deck has three of what they call ‘pools’, but Bucky would classify more as large jacuzzies. Still. The dining room, located at the bottom of a three-story atrium, seats a couple hundred people. A large, winding staircase takes passengers from one level to the next. Everything about the ship is high-end and expensive, including the guests. He adjusts his expression and projects an attitude of belonging.

Every third circuit, he swings by their rooms to check on Clint; he’s always asleep. Late afternoon, after all the passengers have embarked, the ship casts off. When they are well away from land, the tightness in Bucky’s chest loosens, but not by much. They are trapped on this ship, and he’s not going to fully relax until he and Clint can get the hell off of it. If all goes as planned, they’ll meet Nat in Tangier when the Royal Clipper docks there in 36 hours.

Before returning to their rooms, he loops by the ship’s medical office. A young woman in shorts, and a t-shirt with the ship’s logo, looks up from a laptop and smiles at him. Her nametag reads, ‘G. Ferreira, RN’.

“Ola.” She sets the laptop to the side. “Como posso ajuda-lo?”

“Uh, voce tem algo para…” He searches his mind for the Portuguese word for seasickness. “Enjoo?”

Her smile deepens. “Of course,” she says in English. 

“That bad, huh?” Bucky asks. He scans the room. A small examination table occupies the center, there are drawers and locked cabinets along the far wall.

“Not at all,” she answers kindly. “I could simply tell by your accent that you are American. What can I do for you?”

“I, uh, I don’t do so well on ships,” he admits, his expression mildly pained. “Get kind of seasick. Do you have anything that might help?”

“I can give you some sea bands to try if you like. And if those don’t work, I can give you some OTC medicines to start and point you to a doctor for some patches in any of our ports of call.”

Bucky flashes a winning smile. “Sea bands would be great, thanks. I know I should have come better prepared, but my partner kind of surprised me with this trip at the last minute, and I didn’t have the heart to tell him about my seasickness problem.”

Bucky watches closely as she opens her desk drawer and removes a single key attached to a carabiner. She walks to the back of the room and unlocks the far-left cupboard, grabbing a pair of the bands. It looks to be stocked with a lot more sea bands and various OTC meds. Nothing of use. 

She returns the key to the drawer. After the boarding process allowed him to bring 4 weapons onto the ship, Bucky didn’t think he could be more unimpressed with the security. He was wrong. 

“Well, it’s sweet of him to surprise you, anyway,” she says as she hands him the bands. He doesn’t put them on. His silicone glove and sleeve are realistic at a glance, but close scrutiny—especially by a nurse—is another thing. “Enjoy the cruise. I hear the waters are supposed to be pretty calm, so hopefully you’ll be fine.”

“Here’s hoping.” Bucky smiles again and leaves, shoving the bands in his pocket after he closes the door. He’s tried them before; they don’t work for him. He’s not sure if he’s just unlucky, or if it’s because he has only one actual wrist to put them on. He hopes she’s right about calm waters. 

On his way back to their cabin, he makes one final stop. They won’t seat passengers for dinner for another hour, but they had announced over the PA that there are snacks in the second-level bar area for passengers to take as they please. The bar is crowded, but everyone is too busy talking and drinking to pay attention to him as he loads up on protein bars, bananas and oranges, and a few bottles of pre-made smoothies. His hands and pockets are full when he leaves. 

When he passes from his own room into Clint’s, he’s surprised to see Clint sitting up in the chair. He’s pale and his eyes droop with exhaustion. He holds his body with visible tension. A flicker of movement draws Bucky’s attention to Clint’s hand. He’s holding a scalpel, gripping it so tight his knuckles are white. Bucky hadn’t seen him take it from the mortuary. 

“Hey.” He turns his body to set the food on the desk, never taking his eyes from Clint. 

“Hey,” Clint echos. His voice sounds gravelly. 

“I didn’t expect to see you up.” 

Clint offers a wordless, one-shoulder shrug in response.

He steps over to Clint, telegraphing his intent, and carefully extricates the weapon from Clint’s fist. He doesn’t resist but his eyes follow the scalpel as Bucky sets it on the bedside table. 

“Everything okay?” Bucky asks.

Clint’s eyes flick up to him for a couple of seconds, dart back to the scalpel on the table. It takes another three seconds before he blinks. “Yeah.” 

“You sure?” Bucky presses. “Why’re you up?”

“I dunno. I woke up and…” He shakes his head and his face clears a bit. He flashes a weak grin. “Paranoid, I guess.”

The water glass on the bedside table is empty; the pills are still there. 

“How’s the pain?”

“’S okay,” he mumbles. “Manageable.”

“You want something to eat? I brought some fruit and protein bars. Or smoothies.”

“Nah.” Clint holds his arm tight to his body and grimaces as he stands and takes the single step to the bed to lie down again. His eyes are already closed when he says, “I’m good.”

Bucky thinks about pressing it, trying to get Clint to eat, or drink more water and take the pain killers, but if he can sleep without them, he must not need them. Being down a couple pints of blood means what he needs most is rest. Clint doesn’t stir as Bucky carefully slips the sandals off his feet. As an afterthought, he drapes the light throw from the end of the bed over him, too. There isn’t much light coming through the small porthole window, so he snaps on the bedside reading lamp, bathing the room in a warm glow. 

Bucky glances into his own room, considers his bed. He needs rest, he’s running on fumes. With both connecting doors open, he’d be close enough to hear if Clint needed anything. Even as the thought forms in his head, he's dismissing it. If Clint’s in this room, wounded and vulnerable, Bucky will stay close. He turns the chair Clint just vacated to face the bed. When he sits, Clint’s eyes flicker open for a fraction of a second, and, seeing Bucky in the chair, he huffs. Bucky makes no apology.

Bucky extends his legs out in front of himself and tries to get comfortable. He’d like to stretch out next to Clint, sleep tucked up along his side, or better yet, spooned up behind him. That wasn’t on offer, not that Bucky expected it to be. His eyes sweep over Clint, head to toe and back to head. Even asleep, and wounded, and dirty and sweaty from more than 24 hours on the run, Bucky is drawn to him. Something stirs inside him, just at the sight. He pushes the unproductive thoughts away, focuses instead on the comforting rhythm of the rise and fall of Clint’s chest. Eventually, it lulls him enough to doze. 

* * *

He’s not sure how long he’s been slumped in the chair when Clint jerks, and flails to sitting, his back to Bucky. 

Bucky sits up, blinking himself immediately awake. “Clint?”

Clint startles and snaps the upper half of his body around. He grimaces with the movement. Even in the dim light, Bucky can see the dark circles that ring deeply around Clint’s eyes, that his hair is damp and matted around the edges. Streaks of sweat drip from his hairline down his face and neck, shining in the glow from the bedside lamp. He twitches his head around to take in his surroundings. 

His eyes dart from Bucky to his own bandaged arm, then sweep over the room and land back on Bucky. They narrow as he turns fully around. Something glints in his hand, and Bucky glances to where he’d set the scalpel on the table earlier. It’s gone, back in Clint’s hand. 

“Stay back,” Clint growls. His voice is hoarse. 

“Clint…are you okay?”

Clint blinks at him without recognition. He stares down at his arm again, seems to notice it for the first time. His eyes lose focus. 

He’s clearly not tracking, and now that he’s looking for it, Bucky can see the fever shine in his eyes, the limp dampness of his clothes, the sheen of sweat that covers every bit of exposed skin. With uncoordinated fingers, Clint tugs on the dressings on his arm. Bucky reaches out to stop him. “Don’t—” 

Clint lashes out at him with the scalpel. It’s unexpected and Bucky barely bends out of the way in time. He stumbles backward as Clint scrambles into the narrow space between bed and the wall, holding the scalpel out defensively toward Bucky. Bucky touches his fingers to his face—they come back bloody. The blade only nicked his cheekbone, but if Clint were in top form, Bucky’s jugular would be slashed open right now. 

Bucky extends an arm placatingly. “Clint—"

“Stay back!” Clint rasps, slashing the scalpel toward Bucky, though he’s several feet away. His whole body trembles, the muscles on his jaw jump.

Bucky holds up both hands, takes a step backward. “Okay, Clint. Okay.” 

Clint pants loudly, darts his eyes around the room, never landing on anything for more than a half a second. When he looks at his arm again, he seems confused. He fixates on it, pulls at the dressing. “Whaddya do t’ me?” he mumbles with a quick glance back at Bucky.

Bucky shakes his head. “I didn’t—” He stops. That isn’t exactly true, is it? “I had to relieve the pressure. You remember?” He could easily overpower Clint in this state, but getting physical would cause Clint more pain and could do more damage.

In a sudden, jerky move, Clint slices through the dressings on his arm. 

“Please don’t do that.” His voice is calm even as his anxiety skyrockets. “Clint.”

Clint ignores him. His panicked whine ratchets up as he tugs frantically at the bandages. When he pulls them away exposing his wounded arm, Clint stares wide-eyed in horror. The whine turns into a disbelieving moan. 

Bucky takes a step and Clint’s head snaps up. He looks confused, like he’d forgotten Bucky was there. Like he’s not sure who Bucky is. 

“Clint,” Bucky tries again, instinctively moving toward him. “Listen—"

Clint tucks his bad arm into his chest and jabs the scalpel toward Bucky. “Stay back!” he yells. Bucky stops. Clint’s eyes dart to Bucky’s left arm and his face hardens. “I know what you are.” The accusation spills easily from his mouth, like the chorus of a favorite song.

It cuts deeper than any injury Bucky’s ever had.

Never taking his eyes from Bucky, with the blade still extended, Clint steps slowly around the end of the bed and edges toward the door. He wants to make his escape, but there’s nowhere to go on this ship, and they can’t afford to draw attention to themselves by playing some sort of cat and mouse game with both of them covered in blood and hundreds of potential witnesses. More worrying though, Clint’s condition has deteriorated drastically and it’s probably going to get worse. Bucky can’t let Clint get past him. 

Mind made up, he doesn’t hesitate. He springs across the small space in a single movement. Clint lashes out awkwardly with the scalpel—a comical version of the deadly agent Bucky knows him to be. The blade slices into Bucky’s silicone skin, ineffectually glancing off the metal arm. The impacts jars it out of Clint’s hand and it falls to the floor. It throws Clint off balance enough that Bucky is able to wrestle him onto the bed in one efficient move. Clint lands on his back with a gasp. Bucky pounces to straddle his hips, one knee pressing down on Clint’s good arm, a hand on each shoulder, pinning him in place. He fights against Bucky’s hold, all the while keening, like he’s not connecting his pain with his own physical struggle. 

_“Get offa me!”_ Clint snarls loudly. Too loud. They’ve got some sound buffer in that the bathroom is between them and the neighboring room on one side, and Bucky’s room is on the other side, but still, it’s pretty close-quarters on a cruise ship and a lot of noise won’t go unnoticed. They can’t afford to have someone knocking on their door.

Bucky leans down, mouth close to Clint’s ear. “Shhh,” he whispers, “Clint, please, you need to be quiet.” 

“ _Fuck you!_ ” Clint yells, even louder, still fighting with all he’s got. 

“Shh, shhh,” Bucky tries again, but Clint doesn’t stop. Desperate, Bucky shifts his right forearm to press down on Clint’s sternum and clamps his left hand over Clint’s mouth. 

Clint’s eyes flash with a terror Bucky’s never seen before, and he goes completely feral, thrashing like a wild animal caught in a trap. He continues to yell behind Bucky’s hand, and while it isn’t as loud, it’s still _too_ loud.

“Clint, please, _please_ , you have to be quiet,” Bucky whispers fiercely, struggling to restrain the frenzied creature Clint’s become. 

Clint writhes and fights, kicking air and trying to arch his back and lift his hips to throw Bucky off. He bites Bucky’s hand, sawing through the silicone but doing no damage to the metal beneath. His free arm—his bad arm—bends upward and strikes Bucky, barely making contact. He freezes, face contorting in agony. He squeezes his eyes shut and lets out a long, desperate sound, more wounded animal than human.

“Shh, shh, shh, shh. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Bucky whispers, the words stuck on repeat at the horror of how he restrains Clint, causes him more pain. But Bucky doesn’t let go. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Bucky says, as tears of pain or fury or betrayal—or maybe all three—leak from Clint’s eyes and slide down the sides of his face. He makes a weak effort to swivel his neck, to escape from Bucky’s grip on his mouth, but Bucky doesn’t let go. The apology words spill nonstop from Bucky, bitter with the taste of bile. Clint’s eyes close for a second, for a few seconds, for several seconds, before they open again and burn into Bucky’s in a silent accusation, but Bucky doesn’t let go. Clint’s lifts his bad arm a few inches from the bed, then he whines and drops it back down, but Bucky doesn’t let go. His own tears drop onto Clint, mingle with the salty tracks on his cheek. Clint’s chest heaves more slowly and the breaths pushing through his nose grow less frantic, but Bucky doesn’t let go. Clint’s eyes roll back in his head and his eyelids flutter, before finally sliding closed for good. His body stills and goes limp, but Bucky doesn’t let go. He drops his forehead to rest on the bed next to Clint’s ear. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” he sobs, his whole body shaking. 

Bucky waits a full minute before he sits up and finally removes his hand from Clint’s mouth, his knee from Clint’s arm. He wipes the tears and snot from his own face with his arm, then shifts sideways, collapsing against the headboard, perpendicular from where Clint is splayed on the bed unconscious. He pulls his knees up and presses the heels of his fists into his eyes. “Oh god,” he groans softly, voice sounding wrecked, even to his own ears. “Oh god, I’m so sorry. Please forgive me, please, please, please forgive me.” 

He sucks in three deep, shuddering breaths, then moves to kneel next to Clint. “Fuck, _fuck_ ,” he whispers harshly. Clint looks more dead than alive. He’s sprawled, limbs akimbo with one arm raw and bloody, leaking steady red onto the sheets. More blood soaks the cotton fabric of his shirt where the wound in his side has opened and is bleeding again. He’s drenched in sweat and nearly as white as the sheet he’s lying on. The rise and fall of his chest is rapid and shallow. 

Bruises are surfacing around his mouth. 

Bucky retches and presses his hands to his eyes again. “ _Fuck_. Keep I together, Barnes.” This is no time to lose his shit. He needs to focus on what to do _now_ , worry about the rest of it later. Ignoring the bitemarks, he tears the glove part of his silicone prosthetic skin from his hand, then clamps his flesh hand to Clint’s side to staunch the blood flow, even as he reaches the metal one out to touch it to Clint’s forehead. The sensors in his hand instantly register Clint’s temperature as 104.1. _Shit._

He needs to get the fever down or who knows what will happen next time Clint wakes up—if he wakes up. Bucky’s not sure he has it in him to fight Clint like that again. He eyes the pills on the table, but Clint’s not conscious to swallow them. Which leaves him only one option. He scrambles off the bed and darts into to the bathroom where he turns on water in the tub. If he can bring Clint’s temperature down enough that he’s not out of his head, maybe he can get the pills in him. 

He holds his hand under the water and adjusts the knobs until it gets to exactly room temperature, then plugs the drain. He stands in the doorway for a few minutes, one eye on the rising water, one on the man on the bed. When the immense tub is filled just a few inches deep, he turns off the water. As he leaves to get Clint, he turns down the rheostat to dim the lights to something less retina-burning.

Back in the bedroom, he grabs the scalpel from the floor and cuts away Clint’s blood-soaked clothes. It’s difficult. Clint is heavy with unconsciousness and drenched in slippery sweat. The way Clint’s body is so limp and still— _dead weight_ —is too unsettling to think about. He shoves the thoughts away and focuses on the tasks. 

Once stripped, Bucky gently lifts Clint in a bridal carry and walks to the bathroom, a trail of blood in their wake. He skirts sideways through the door with infinite care so he doesn’t bump the injured arm on the jamb, and slowly eases Clint into the lukewarm bath. The water immediately tinges red from the sluggish bleeding of the wound on his side and the blood smeared on his body, slow tendrils spreading into a cloud of diluted pink. 

Clint rouses momentarily and Bucky freezes, his heart thumps wildly as he waits to see what will happen. Thankfully, Clint just slurs something unintelligible and sinks into unconsciousness again. Bucky grabs a towel, wets it and drapes it behind Clint’s back to create some friction to keep him from sliding down. He props him up so his bad arm can rest fully on the wide rim of the tub. Red droplets fall from his fingers onto the white marble floor.

Bucky needs to clean Clint’s arm and re-dress and re-splint it, but first he grabs a washcloth and dips it in the tub. He glides it over the exposed parts of Clint’s body, wipes the sweat and blood away, avoids the wound in his side. He swipes Clint’s face and neck, along his hairline, front and back, then runs it down his torso again. He does this for a few minutes, praying the air cooling on Clint’s wet skin will bring the fever down.

The pool of blood near his knee grows. He looks down at himself and hesitates. Despite the new clothes he’d put on that morning, he knows he’s not actually _clean_ after hours on the run the night before and a night spent in a dusty crypt. Bucky stands and strips off his shirt, then turns on the hot water in the sink to scalding, plugs the drain and pours in a little of the complimentary shampoo, working up a soapy froth. He peels the silicone sleeve from his arm and drops it in to soak, and then darts into the bedroom to get the glove and does the same with it. Clint hasn’t moved at all; for all the frantic fury and fear just moments ago, he’s lying peacefully now. Bucky runs the cloth over Clint a couple more times, before stepping up to the second sink and furiously washing his hands. He lathers and scrubs for a few long minutes, keeping an eye on Clint in the mirror the entire time.

He scoops some water into his palms and brings it to his face, wipes at the crusted blood from when Clint had nicked him with the blade. The cut is nearly healed, pretty soon there will be no trace of it at all. The bullet crease on his forehead is already gone. _‘I know what you are’_ , Clint had said. He glances at his prosthetic arm. Bucky knows, too. He’s a monster. He had sliced into Clint’s arm without a flinch. Bucky’s face will be unmarred by morning; Clint will carry the scars from the Soldier for the rest of his life. 

He wants to punch the wall, shatter the glass, pound his fist into the marble floor until the metal of his hand splinters apart. Except all that would accomplish would be to destroy the bathroom, leaving his vibranium arm undamaged. He takes a deep breath in through his nose and out through his mouth, practicing the technique he learned years ago. Once, twice, three times, then he goes back to scrubbing his hands.

When he’s physically clean, he kneels next to the tub again and finds Clint’s temperature has dipped down to 103.4. He swabs Clint down several more times before he stands to turn up the lights and grab what they have in the way of medical supplies.

He’s just set them on a clean towel on the floor and is snapping on some gloves when he notices that Clint’s arm is angry and red—redder than it should be. Panic bubbles up inside him. The infection is obvious around the wound, but red swelling is creeping up higher on his arm, as well. He touches his fingers to Clint’s neck and feels a jackrabbit pulse. _Fuck._ He knows it’s worse than a straightforward infection, but he doesn’t know much more than that.

Bucky pushes into that place in his head where the answers are, but the part of him that’s been trying to keep that door closed for months now, derails his line of thought. _Monster._ He curses under his breath, at war with himself. As sick as it makes him, Clint doesn’t need Bucky right now, he needs the Soldier. He closes his eyes, grits his teeth, and reaches for a small amount of the Soldier’s calm, the Soldier’s answers. He finds them in less than a second: It’s likely septicemia. If it’s not treated—quickly—it could lead to full blown sepsis and then septic shock. Out here on the run, that would probably kill Clint. 

When he opens his eyes again, his thoughts are ordered and narrowed down to the list of what he has to do. First, take care of the new bleeds that erupted during their struggle, then clean and pack the wound. Once that’s done, rebandage it and get it re-stabilized in the splint. Clean and re-dress the wound on his side. Get him back into the bed. Keep him warm—but not too warm—so he doesn’t shiver and cause his temperature to rise. Try to rouse him and get some Tylenol into him. Get antibiotics. It’s that last one that complicates things; he doesn’t want to leave Clint alone. 

Bucky shakes away the thought. One step at a time. He opens the suture kit he took from the mortuary and sets to work on Clint’s arm, tying off the new bleeds. When his hands start to shake and his nausea rises at how raw and bloody and…exposed it is, he lets more of the Soldier take over. Bucky’s still there, inside his own head, but with the Soldier leading, he can shift into mindlessly performing the necessary tasks. He finishes with the arm and moves on to the wound in Clint’s side. It’s bled a lot, and is more ragged around the edges than before, but it doesn’t look infected. 

Having done all he can for Clint’s injuries, Bucky opens the drain and the pink-tinged water runs out. He turns the tap back on, dips a clean cloth into the stream, and wipes the dirty residue from Clint's body. Once he’s as clean as Bucky can get him without a full-blown bath or shower, he touches his hand to Clint’s forehead again. His temperature is down to 102.2. Bucky drops his head and lets himself breath for a short moment. He turns off the water, pats Clint dry as well as he can, then carefully picks him up and walks him into the other room. 

The bed is a mess—the sheets are pulled loose and tangled, dried blood is smeared all over them—so he continues on into his own room and lays Clint on that bed. It would be difficult to force lifeless limbs into new clothes, and Bucky doesn’t want to risk jostling his injuries even more, so he doesn’t bother to try. Instead, he pulls the sheet up to his stomach.

Clint’s still unresponsive, so he fills the ice bucket with tepid water and grabs a clean washcloth from his own bathroom, then sits up on the bed and gently maneuvers Clint to himself, resting Clint’s head on his thigh. He dips the cloth into the water, wrings it out, then smooths it around Clint’s face, his neck, his chest, down his good arm. He does it over and over—Bucky loses track of how many time—until Clint’s temperature finally dips below 102, to a much safer 101.7. Deeply relieved, Bucky sets the cloth aside. 

He so tired, and yet, without something useful to do with his hands, they grow restless. He finds himself carding his right hand through Clint’s hair, stroking slowly from his forehead back. Where his hair has matted from sweat and dirt and blood, Bucky rolls the strands between his fingers, works them free until they slip away. It feels nice. Even dirty, Clint’s hair feels silky under his fingers and the sensation soothes his frayed nerves. He drifts with the movement, thinks how nice it would be to do this when Clint was awake... 

Awareness roars back and he yanks his hand away, horrified that he was touching Clint so intimately without his consent. _Monster._

Clint hums and stirs. Bucky quickly extracts himself, moving down the bed to kneel by Clint’s side, ready, if he lashes out again. Leaning in, he says, “Clint?”

Clint’s eyes flutter for a handful of seconds before they finally find purchase and stay open a crack. “Buck?” he rasps. 

“I’m here.”

“Don’ feel so good.”

“I know,” Bucky says. Reaching sideways to the bedside table, he grabs the Tylenol and a bottle of water. “You’ve got a fever. You need to take these pills, okay?” He holds them up in front of Clint’s face so he can see them.

Clint doesn’t question or protest, just nods minutely and opens his mouth enough for Bucky to slip the pills inside. Clint tries to dry swallow them but ends up gagging instead.

“Hang on, hang on,” Bucky says, cracking open the bottle of water. “Drink.” Bucky slips his hand under Clint’s head to lift a little, then brings the bottle to Clint’s lips. “Drink as much as you can, you need fluids.”

Once again, Clint doesn’t question it and does as he says. With Bucky holding him up, he manages small sips at a time. He drinks half the bottle before he chokes on a swallow and coughs. He pushes Bucky’s hand away with a grimace.

His eyes are still glassy, but they sweep the room, take in the details. “Why ‘m I in y’r room?” His voice cuts in and out as he talks. 

“You have a fever. Your bed got kinda…sweaty.”

“Gross,” Clint mumbles, rolling onto his side into a tight fetal curl, arm held protectively against himself. “Sorry.” His eyes droop, then close all the way.

A small laugh bubbles out of Bucky, but there’s no humor behind it. “It’s okay,” he says shakily, even though Clint’s already dead to the world again and won’t hear him.

Bucky sits back on his heels and drops his head. He’s exhausted. He can usually physically push himself longer than this, but healing from the bullet to his leg has eaten away at his store of reserves, and the last twenty-four hours has emotionally stripped him. But with Clint’s fever down enough that he’s lucid, and now with the medicine in him, it’s Bucky’s chance to go check the ship’s medical clinic for antibiotics. He’s not particularly hopeful, considering the nurse’s comments about needing to get patches from a doctor in port, but he has to check. 

He climbs off the bed, but stalls, watching Clint breathe. He doesn’t want to leave, can’t seem to make his feet move. He’s not sure how long he stares before Clint shifts, pushes his face into the pillow. A small wince flickers across his face, then disappears, but it’s enough to break inertia’s hold on Bucky. He pulls the sheet and a single light blanket up to Clint’s neck, checks the lock on Clint’s door, then slips into the hall.

It’s late—past 2:00am—so he doesn’t expect to encounter anyone in the halls, and he doesn’t. He creeps to the nurse’s office and picks the lock on the door. It’s the work of just a few more seconds to pick the lock on the desk drawer. The key to the supply cabinets is inside exactly where the nurse had put them earlier. Seriously terrible security. He moves silently, checks all the cupboards and drawers, but, as he suspected, there are no antibiotics. He does find a another suture kit which he shoves into his pocket. Other than that, there’s nothing useful. Before he leaves, he rifles the desk to find a list of clinics and hospitals in each of their ports of call. He scans the document and files the information into the Soldier’s memory.

Back in the room, he finds Clint where he left him, still curled in a child-like ball. He peels the silicone glove off and touches his hand to Clint’s forehead. His temperature is still hovering around 101.8. Hopefully once the Tylenol kicks in, it’ll go even lower, but Bucky doesn’t kid himself, Clint needs antibiotics. Strong ones. He runs the ship’s itinerary in his head. Their first stop is Portimão. It will be risky to get off the ship while still in Portugal, but he doesn’t see any way around it. 

He checks his watch. The ship docks at Vasco de Gama Pier in just over 4 hours. At least they have one piece of luck: he’ll be able to give Clint another dose of Tylenol before he leaves, which will hopefully keep the fever out of dangerous territory until Bucky can get him what he really needs. He sets the alarm on his watch and carefully eases onto the bed. He doesn’t spoon up behind Clint like he wishes he could, but he does roll onto his side just behind him, a loose approximation of Clint’s tighter position. He breathes in deeply, filtering through the mild smell of sweat to take in the familiar scent of Clint that he only gets in too-small doses. It calms him enough that he can close his eyes. With things at a momentary stand-still, the seasickness that he’s been willfully ignoring since they departed becomes more insistent, but he’s too tired to give it any capital. He lets himself doze lightly. 

* * *

He wakes before his alarm goes off. It’s pre-dawn and the ship is maneuvering into port at Portimão. He’s startled to find he’d edged closer to Clint in his sleep and has his wrist resting on Clint’s hip. He carefully removes it and inches backward before he sits up and rouses Clint. He’s still lethargic, though thankfully coherent enough to recognize Bucky and take another dose of the fever reducer and drink more water without protest. Clint’s back asleep before Bucky slips out of the room again, this time with an empty pack on his back.

He doesn’t wait for the ship’s crew to get the gangplank in place—he’s not a tourist—instead, he heads to the stern where he jumps to the dock without being seen. He checks the time; he’s got 64 minutes before the sun comes up. 

As he’d made his way from their room to the dock, he’d pulled up in his memory the list of clinics and hospitals he’d found in the nurse’s office. He located each one on the map in his head. The Hospital de Sao Camilo is about 1.5 kilometers from the port. There are smaller medical clinics closer, but Bucky can’t be sure they’d have the IV antibiotics Clint needs. He also figures since he’s going to have to steal the drugs, he should get as far away from the ship as he can to minimize any connection to it. 

He sets a quick pace to the hospital, staying in the shadows, even though the small town doesn’t have any CCTV. Except for a few morning delivery trucks that rumble past now and then, the town is quiet. He arrives at the target hospital and walks the entire perimeter from across the street, noting all potential access points. He’s about to try to find a way in through the service entry when a truck pulls up to it, backing in with a beeping signal. Two men get out of the cab, one opens the back of the truck while the other punches in a code that starts the overhead bay door rising. 

The men wheel several large bins into the building before punching in the code to close the door again and driving away. Bucky creeps to the loading dock and keys in the code he’d watched them enter. He almost doesn’t believe his luck when he steps inside and sees that they’d been delivering linens, and they’ve dropped off sheets and scrubs. 

Bucky quickly strips and puts on some scrubs, shoving his other clothes into his backpack before walking into the main part of the hospital looking for all the world as though he belongs there. He nods at the few staff he sees—mostly cleaning crews—and they nod back without interest. Except for one nurse, who furrows her brows at him for a split second as he passes by her station. As he rounds a corner in the hallway, he takes a furtive glance, but she’s got her head bent over a chart again. 

He locates the hospital pharmacy within a few minutes and encounters his first obstacle. The lock mechanism is electronic and requires a key card. He had known this was a possibility, but had hoped that the place was small enough, or remote enough, that they hadn’t upgraded their security. There are probably only a handful of people who have access, but Bucky doesn’t have time to go that route.

He glances over his shoulder before he forcefully twists the doorknob with his metal hand, breaking the lock. He creeps to the back where the inventory is kept and scans the shelves. He grabs three broad-spectrum antibiotic drip bags, a bottle of Keflex, a handful each of needle ports and alcohol wipes, and a box of gloves for good measure. He shoves everything into his pack. There’s no way they aren’t going to know someone broke into the pharmacy, so after he takes what he needs, he grabs all the Oxy from the shelves as well, hoping it will throw them off the scent for at least a little while. 

He’s in and out of the hospital in under twelve minutes, and back at the ship ten minutes after that—still well before sunrise. He doesn’t trust it. It’s been too easy. Nothing ever goes this smoothly when there’s no preplanning in place. On the other hand, Clint was shot, has a raging infection, and they’re on the run. Bucky decides he’ll take the win. They just need their luck to hold for another day until they get to Tangier and Nat.

He is relieved to find that Clint is pretty much exactly as he left him, so he doesn’t waste any time, washing his hands thoroughly and snapping on a pair of gloves. He’s never inserted an IV port into anyone before, but the Soldier guides him through the steps, sliding the needle into a vein on Clint’s hand with his first try. He jury-rigs a bag of the antibiotics to the reading lamp above the bed and opens the stop, letting gravity do its work. If they can get a jump on the infection with a couple of IV bags, the Keflex should hold the infection at bay until they can get Clint to the safety of a friendly hospital.

Once Clint’s squared away, the twin walls of physical and emotional exhaustion hit Bucky, and he clumsily topples backward into the chair. He folds in half, fingers laced behind his neck, as he takes several long, deep breaths and tries to hold himself together. His eyes start to prickle and burn and he squeezes them tightly shut, groaning softly and shaking his head in denial. They’re not out of the woods yet and he still needs to keep his shit together. He needs to protect Clint. To do that, he needs to be functional. He needs real sleep. 

The ship will be docked most of the day for the passengers to get out and explore the small town, but the two of them aren’t going anywhere. He toes off his sandals and peels off his shirt and shorts, drags himself into the bathroom for a real shower. He moves the chairs in each room in front of the doors. It won’t stop anyone getting in, but it’ll make some noise and might delay them enough to give Bucky a split-second advantage. He steps over to the bed and reaches over Clint to grab a pillow, then lies down on the floor, afraid that if he climbs into the bed, his subconscious will pull him to Clint in his sleep again. Clint is lucid now; better to keep a safe distance. 

He wakes a few times, take a piss and helps Clint to do the same, changes his IV, forces fluids, a little fruit, and Tylenol into him, then waits for Clint to sleep again before he slumps back onto the floor. 

Long after sunset, a few hours after they depart Portimão, their luck runs out.

* * *

Bucky wakes to the distinctive rumble of a large motorized watercraft approaching the ship. He searches the databank in his head. It sounds like a Portuguese Naval patrol boat, probably Argos- or Centauro-class. Two NSV 12.7 mm heavy machine guns. If it’s a Centauro, then it’s also got an Oerlikon 20 mm cannon. Eight personnel. Unknown number of personal weapons. At least 8, probably more. 

He puts his hand on Clint’s shoulder, pulling him from his deep sleep. “Clint. You need to wake up.”

Clint’s eyes flutter and he blinks several times. “Wha…What’s going on?” he rasps.

“Get dressed. We’ve got company.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the little cliffy!! 
> 
> As always, I appreciate you reading, and if you can take a sec to leave feedback of any kind, I am always grateful to have it. It does nourish a writer's soul. :)


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky and Clint vs HYDRA. Guess who wins?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oof. This somehow ended up much longer than I expected. I was thinking make 4K-5K but it came in at 8.3K. 
> 
> I added a pic of the Centauro Class boat the boys are on for much of this chapter.
> 
> Heartfelt thanks, as usual, to Britt and Milly, who always make things better.

He knows he heard Bucky’s voice rousing him, but that’s about all he knows. His head is foggy and Bucky’s words didn’t quite register; only his voice, pulling Clint to the surface. He opens his eyes and Bucky glides through his line of sight, but Clint doesn’t want to move. He feels like he’s been run over by a truck which means if he moves, it’s going to hurt even more and he’s all for avoiding that. Worse, he feels like he couldn’t move even if he wanted to because he hasn’t got the energy. He has the sensation that he’s lost large swaths of time and that’s never good. 

The room is dimly lit and he blinks, trying to get his eyes to make the connection to his brain and tell him where the hell he is because he has no idea. He lifts his head a little and a quick glance around finds Bucky now peering out a porthole window into the dark night. Clint drops his head back down. Right. They’re on that sailing ship. He doesn’t remember much beyond that. His eyes slip closed. “What’s going on?” His voice is barely there. He works to clear his throat, but the tiny movement sends sharp jolts up his left side, so he leaves it. 

“We’ve got company.”

That gets Clint’s attention. He lifts his head again. “Good company or bad company?” he croaks.

“Definitely bad. Can’t see anything though, they’re on the other side of the ship.” Even so, Bucky stays by the porthole, canting his head a fraction like he’s trying to better hear the distant voices. 

Clint rolls slightly so he can position his good arm to push himself up, holding his bad arm tightly to his torso and shoving the sheets off with his feet as he goes. Before his feet are even on the floor, black dots encroach on his vision and he holds himself perfectly still, waiting for them to clear. He becomes aware of an insistent tug on his right arm and he looks down to see he’s tethered to an IV line by a port in the back of his hand. He doesn’t remember that. 

The low rumble of boat engines filter in, and now that he’s more fully awake he asks, “Can you tell what kind of boat?” 

“Pretty sure it’s Portuguese Navy.”

“Shit,” Clint mutters. 

The half-full IV bag hangs from a jury-rigged hook on the wall above the bed. He tries to pick at the tape securing the port in his hand with the fingers of his splinted arm. He can’t really bend or grasp with them though, so he doesn’t make much headway.

Bucky sees what he’s doing and takes a step in Clint’s direction. “Here, let me—” 

But Clint has already lost patience and raised his arm to his mouth where he grabs the port with his teeth and rips it out of his hand. Blood immediately flows from the small wound and wraps around his hand, drips onto the bed. He presses it into the mattress.

It’s the least of their worries, but Bucky’s back in his space a second later, roll of gauze already in his hand. He tsks dramatically. “If you’d been patient, I could have helped with that.”

“No time,” Clint says. “Hurry up.”

Bucky rolls his eyes as he presses a square piece of gauze to the top of Clint’s hand and works quickly to wrap some bandages around it. 

While Clint’s waiting for Bucky to finish with his mother hen routine, he takes in the fact that he’s naked. He’s a little unclear on why that is. A lot of things are unclear. Like…pretty much everything since they boarded the ship. Sketchy, disconcerting images float at the periphery of his memory—flashes of fear and rage and helplessness—but when he tries to latch onto any of them, he can’t. Truthfully, he’s not sure he wants to. 

When Bucky finishes and ties off the gauze, he immediately takes a step backward. He’s wearing an uncertain expression.

Clint draws his brows together. “You okay?”

Bucky ducks his eyes and grabs some clothes, throwing them on. “I’m fine. Are _you?_ ”

Clint isn’t, particularly. His left arm and side have kicked up a sharp, fiery rhythm that slices through him in time with his adrenaline-induced quickening pulse. And he’s got the kind of headache and whole-body exhaustion that speak to something larger going on. “Fine,” he answers. He can tell that if they had more time, Bucky would be calling him on that. He starts to stand up to get some clothes, but Bucky stops him with a gentle hand on his shoulder.

“No, save your energy, I’ll get it.” He darts into Clint’s room and when he returns, he closes and locks the door. 

All things being equal, Clint would prefer to dress himself, but he doesn’t have the energy to feel self-conscious about it. He lets Bucky get him into a clean set of shorts without comment. Bucky helps him to his feet and then tugs them up to button and zip them. It’s not the gentle touch from the mortuary that Clint had wanted to lean into, more of a necessity done mechanically for a purpose. Working Clint into a new shirt is more difficult because of his arm and his side. He hisses involuntarily a couple times when the movement sends pain shooting up and down his arm, causing Bucky to freeze and murmur, “Sorry, sorry,” turning worried eyes his way. Clint waves him off each time.

When the shirt is on, Bucky noticeably backs off again and Clint squints at him, puzzled. He’s going to need to eventually get some answers from Bucky about what the hell’s been happening, but now’s probably not the time. 

Bucky is efficient in his movements as he grabs the chair that was blocking the door and swings it over to where Clint’s standing. “Sit,” he says, placing Clint’s shoes on the floor in front of the chair before stepping away to shove things into the backpack Clint recognizes as the one he’d carried onto the ship.

Clint slowly eases himself down and holds steady, catching his breath. While he stuffs his feet into his sandals, he studies Bucky some more, trying to decipher what’s going on him, why he seems to be looking almost everywhere but at Clint. When he bends to tighten the toggles, his fingers fumble, and in a flash, Bucky is kneeling next to him, tightening the shoes for him. The whiplash of Bucky’s back and forth is giving him a worse headache. 

“What day is it?” Clint asks.

Bucky’s eyes flick to Clint’s and back. “Monday. About 2:30am.”

Clint curses their bad luck; they’re only a few hours out from the relative safety of Tangier where Natasha will be waiting for them. 

Bucky finishes with Clint’s sandals and then materializes Clint’s sling from somewhere. He wraps it over and around Clint with careful hands. When Clint’s arm is snugly settled, Bucky tucks one of the knives inside of it. Clint appreciates its solid presence; it makes him feel less naked.

Bucky grabs the room key from the table. “Rest while you can. I’m gonna go take a quick look so we know what we’re walking into. I’ll be back in five minutes.”

Clint nods, and as soon as Bucky’s out the door, he grabs the half-full bottle from the bedside table and tosses it at the door, flipping the deadbolt. He drops his head into the back of the chair and stares at the ceiling. He’s tired. Whatever comes next is going to suck but it’ll be made considerably worse by the way he already feels. And he hates waiting for bad shit. He should have just gone with Bucky. 

He fingers the knife in his sling, glad for it’s reassuring presence. A dim memory of the scalpel surfaces. He eyes the connecting door between the two staterooms trying to decide if the expenditure of energy is worth it. In the end, Clint doesn’t have it in him not to go get the extra weapon. He takes a deep breath and pushes to his feet, not bothering to hold back a small groan. He makes his way to the connecting door and opens it, flipping on the light. He stalls in his tracks. The chair is tipped over, the bed has been tossed and there’s _a lot_ of dried blood on the sheets and the floor, even smears of it on the wall. The clothes he was wearing when he boarded the ship lie on the floor, cut up and bloody. Clint stares, then shivers as thoughts of Loki come out of nowhere to push at his brain, followed by a flood of hazy, confusing possible-memories. He closes his eyes, squeezing them tight, as though that can get Loki out of his brain. It doesn’t, so he changes tack, ignoring the grizzly scene to focus on what he came in for.

He scans the mess until he spies it. The scalpel is on the floor, near the bottom of the bed, half concealed by some displaced bedding. He leans heavily on the mattress and goes to one knee so he can pick it up. 

The knife Bucky gave him is tucked between his arm and the sling. But the scalpel is slim, so he’s able to hide it better, sliding it under the splint next to his skin, having to wiggle it a little to wedge it in there. That done, Clint looks around again. 

There’s a trail of blood leading to the bathroom. Clint follows it. With one hand on the wall for balance, he takes the three steps to the door and looks inside. There’s a pool of dried blood on the floor next to tub, and smears of red in and around it. Towels and washcloths that were formerly white are now tinged pink or have gashes of dark red-brown stains on them. He tries to still his growing alarm and focus, trying to _remember._ All that comes are more distorted images of Loki that don’t make sense. Loki couldn’t have been here; Loki’s dead. 

When Thor had told them about the frost giant’s death, Clint’s emotions had swung from one extreme to the other. On one hand (and admittedly his first reaction), he’d felt pure, utter relief that the trickster would never return. On the other hand, he understood the grief Thor was clearly experiencing. Understood it better than any of the others probably, having lost his own brother who had been, variously, his best friend and his worst enemy. 

He leans against the door jamb, closing his eyes and rolling his head on the cool wood. He’s so fucking tired. It takes a minute to steady himself enough to make his way back to the other bedroom, sitting again in the chair. 

Bucky slips back into the room within the promised five minutes. “We gotta move,” he says, low and urgent, gathering up their things. “They ID’d us both as being on the ship. Two of them are on their way here now with the purser.”

Clint grits his teeth and struggles to his feet while Bucky hustles into the bathroom, quickly returning. “Take these. Hurry.” He dumps four pills into Clint’s hand and shoves more into his own pocket.

“What are they?” Clint asks, even as he’s tossing them into his mouth.   
  


“Antibiotics and Tylenol.” Bucky hands him a bottle of water, open and ready. 

Clint takes a few sips to wash the pills down but can’t stomach much more. “Where’d you get—”

Bucky shakes his head, already half-way out the door. “Later.”

Clint doesn’t press it; bigger fish, and all that. 

Bucky checks the hall, then gives him a quick nod before they slink out. He leads them left, and they turn a corner just as they hear footsteps at the other end of the hall. 

They work their way up to the deck on the opposite side of the Clipper from where the navy boat has come alongside the ship. The night is clear and it’s hard to tell where the sea ends and the sky begins with how brightly the stars shine and reflect off the calm waters. Bucky guides them to the steep steps that lead to the forecastle desk, but the short walk has nearly done Clint in. He leans against the base of a wide mast and slides heavily down to sitting, closing his eyes. The way the ships gently bobs on the water is lulling, and Clint lets his eyes drift shut as Bucky disappears up onto the higher deck for a better vantage point. 

He can hear the low conversation going on between a handful of the ship’s crew and the presumed-HYDRA agents. Before he’d practically dropped onto the floor, he had seen that two of the newcomers had boarded the Clipper, while four were visible on the deck of their own boat, weapons raised and ready. The two with the purser haven’t returned yet. Probably they’re tossing Clint and Bucky’s rooms, hoping to find the flash drive. 

By all appearances, the boat and the sailors on it had looked like standard Portuguese Navy, and it appeared that at first, they’d stuck to playing the role. But the voices are starting to take on a tinge of impatience and it’s clear that the HYDRA assholes are getting dangerously close to a point of no return with keeping their cover. 

Clint waits, considering the situation. The Royal Clipper is a ship filled with leverage, and he can only see one option. Calm resignation settles over him—he only wishes Bucky weren’t here with him. A moment later, the man is back, squatting next to him. 

“Bucky,” Clint says quietly, “there must be over 200 hundred passengers on this ship. Could be another 100 crew or more.” 

“Yeah.”

“I figure we got less than ten minutes before they start executing them.”

“That sounds about right.”

“We gotta turn ourselves over.”

Bucky sighs. “I know,” he says, clearly unhappy about it, but also resigned.

Clint nods and says, “Listen, when we get down there, go over the rail. Make sure they see you.”

Bucky snorts. “Yeah, no. You wouldn’t last two minutes in the water in the shape you’re in.”

Clint levels a fixed expression at him. “I’m not saying we both go over.”

Bucky stares at him blankly for a couple of seconds, then his expression turns hard. “I’m not leaving you here alone with them.”

Clint makes a frustrated noise. “Don’t be an idiot,” he argues, whispering fiercely. “You could get outta here. It’s dark, you could get clear. Even if they get in a couple shots, you’d be okay. You could double back to the ship after they leave.” 

“Shut up, Barton, I’m not leaving you.”

Clint grunts in annoyance. “Someone’s got to make sure SHIELD gets that USB and with the shape I’m in that’s never gonna be me.”

“Nice try, but Natasha knows where to find the drive,” Bucky hisses at him. “Besides, the only thing I hate more than being on a boat is being in the water.”

“Bucky,” Clint tries again, fisting the front of Bucky’s shirt to make sure he has his attention. “I’m out of commission. There’s no reason for them to get us both. _You_ can get outta here. Don’t be an idiot.”

“Alone you’re dead in five minutes. If we’re together, we might find an opening, have a chance. There are only eight of them. We’ve faced worse odds.”

He lets go of the shirt. “Bucky, please,” he pleads, “I—” he stops himself and closes his eyes because there’s a sucking hole in his chest and he was about to say something monumentally stupid. When he opens his eyes he says, “If it weren’t for me—for you staying to help me—you’d be long gone with that intel and we both know it.” 

“We’re partners. We don’t leave each other behind,” he bites out.

Clint breathes out slowly, trying to find the right combination of words to convince Bucky to leave him. “How do I live with myself if you’re killed because of me?” Not that he’s likely to survive the night anyway. 

Bucky’s jaw clenches and there’s a beat before he responds. “How do I?” he says, his voice tight.

Clint’s brain stalls a little and he blinks, trying to make sense of what Bucky had said, but before he can, voices rise sharply across the ship and they both turn toward it. The purser and the two sailors have returned from their empty rooms and are talking with the Clipper’s captain and the captain of the naval vessel. 

Bucky stands, taking care to stay behind the wide mast. “We can’t fight ‘em here. We’ll go with them and wait until they cast off from the ship, hope for an opening,” he murmurs, never shifting his glance from the direction of the HYDRA operatives.

“ _Bucky—"_

Bucky looks at him, his nostrils flaring. He’s really angry, Clint thinks. “I said I’m not leaving you, now shut the fuck up and let’s get this over with.” Before Clint can say another word, Bucky’s pulling him to his feet. “Lean on me,” Bucky directs him, tugging Clint’s good arm around his shoulder, “you look like you’re going to fall over.”

“Goddammit, Bucky—” Clint mutters.

“Shut up,” Bucky says again.

* * *

In the end, revealing themselves turns out to be anticlimactic, which is the best Bucky could have hoped for. The sailors on the supposed navy boat aren’t eager to reveal who they are to the Clipper crew, so they relax considerably when he and Clint surrender, and they make a good show of it being a high-seas arrest with a story about fisheries violations. Bucky and Clint play along. 

Not surprisingly, they immediately find the three knives Bucky had on him and the one he’d slipped into Clint’s sling. When one of the sailors finds the fistful of pills in Bucky’s pocket, he drops them into the captain’s hand. He peers at them briefly, then tosses them into the sea. Bucky silently curses the man. 

They gesture with their guns toward the other boat, sending Bucky first. Clint had already looked like he was about to fall over, so Bucky watches him descend the rope ladder to the smaller boat with his heart in his throat, afraid that any second he’s going to lose his grip and disappear into the dark sea. Bucky relaxes fractionally when, through sheer stubbornness alone, Clint’s feet land on the smaller boat’s deck. Even in the dark, and even though he’s guarding it with his injured arm, Bucky can see that there’s a growing patch of red on his shirt. 

They have one thing going for them: the HYDRA agents don’t seem to know they’ve got Hawkeye and the Winter Soldier in their custody, because they bring out regular flexicuffs to restrain them. Heavier gauge than standard police zip ties, yes, with double loops, but still, they’ll be child’s play for the Winter Soldier’s strength. If they can just keep these assholes from killing them until there’s an opening, they might have a chance. Openings are going to be hard to come by, though. There are eight crew members on the new boat, six of them holding FN SCAR assault rifles and all of them with Glock 17 sidearms. One sailor keeps them in his sights with the heavy NSV 12.7mm machine gun that’s mounted on a tripod higher on the deck. 

If it were just him, Bucky _would’ve_ gone over the side in a heartbeat, but there’s no way he’ll do that while there’s the slimmest chance that he can get Clint out of this. 

They rip the sling off of Clint and jerk his arms around to his back, ignoring the fact that one is obviously broken. They get only the tiniest flinch from Clint, who otherwise stays stoic and doesn’t make a sound. Bucky can see his eyes darting from sailor to sailor, cataloguing everything. 

Bucky tenses when the captain steps over in front of Clint and scrutinizes him, head to toe. Bucky can see how Clint is coiled and wants to lash out somehow, but Bucky knows he’s holding himself back for the sake of the innocent people on the other boat. The captain must be able to read some of that too, because he reaches out and jabs the bloody patch on Clint’s side. Clint grunts, and his body reflexively bends a little, but that’s the only reaction he gives. 

The HYDRA fuck steps closer into Clint’s space wearing a sinister expression and Bucky’s thinking about all the ways he wants to kill this asshole, when the sailor who is tightening up his plastic handcuffs freezes. 

“What the _hell?_ ” he says. Quietly, though, because they still haven’t detached themselves from the Royal Clipper, and the cruise ship’s sailors are still nearby, clearly curious and watching them closely. 

The captain snaps his head in their direction. “What?”

_That’s it, look at me, asshole,_ Bucky thinks.

“Sir…” 

“What is it?” the captain hisses impatiently, stepping closer.

“Sir, he’s got… His arm is weird.” 

The captain is _much_ more interested now. He steps behind Bucky and grabs his arm. A second later, Bucky feels him tugging at the silicone sleeve where it meets the glove, then he pulls the glove piece off altogether. 

“Keep every gun this one,” he says as he moves around to stand in front of Bucky, watching him warily. “Luz, Oliveira, cast off,” he orders. 

Bucky wants desperately to make eye contact with Clint, because if he’s about to die, he wants Clint to be the last thing he sees on this earthly plane. But he won’t look, because it might draw attention to Clint, and that’s the last thing he wants.

“Well, this is an interesting turn of events. No one told us we were chasing the Winter Soldier. Barbosa,” the captain says, never taking his eyes off Bucky.

“Yes, Sir.”

“Give me one of the knives you took from him.” He holds his hand out to the side and a knife is quickly placed in it. “Let’s see if what they say about you is true.” 

Bucky’s hands are balled into fists as the captain leans in close and says quietly into his ear, “Do not move, Soldier. Do not make a sound. Do not try to escape. Or they will empty their guns—”

Bucky makes a potentially fatal mistake. 

His eyes flicker over to Clint for just a split second. He can’t stop himself; it’s reflex. And it is so, so incredibly stupid, because even as the captain is finishing the sentence, ‘on the other boat’, he’s turning to look at Clint. His eyes make another quick sweep over him.

The captain turns a full-on smile back to Bucky. “Braga,” he calls, and the guy on the big gun, up above, answers. “Keep the gun on the other one.” He gestures at Clint without looking at him. 

Bucky doesn’t say anything, just watches the man impassively. 

The HYDRA sailors have cast off from the Royal Clipper and everyone is still for a few minutes while they move apart. The sailor who’s piloting the navy boat accelerates slowly to avoid throwing a large wake close to the ship. Eventually, they bank slightly and head east, increasing speed as they pull farther away. The captain doesn’t move from the spot in front of Bucky, apparently trying to start a staring contest, but it’s one-sided, because Bucky could care less, his gaze wandering, taking the measure of the other sailors, looking for weaknesses, occasionally skimming his eyes past Clint to make sure he’s still standing. 

Even those short glimpses tell Bucky all he needs to know. Clint is soaked in sweat, his shirt dark with it and drops are visibly sliding down from his hair and neck. The harsh lights of the boat cause the contrast between his pale face and the dark smudges under his eyes to make him look ghoulish. Bucky suspects he’s holding onto consciousness by the barest thread. 

When they’re close to a nautical mile away from the Royal Clipper, the captain grows impatient. “Now then, shall we have a little fun?” He’s spinning the knife in his hand. He leans in close. “Do not forget that my man has your _friend_ in his sights.”

Bucky ignores him, but he can see enough in his peripheral vision to see it coming when the captain shoves the knife into his left side—in the same spot as Clint’s injury except this is not a superficial wound. He lets out the slightest gasps and looks down as the knife is buried hilt-deep between his ribs. He does look at the captain then: his eyes are dancing and he’s grinning with delight. Sick fuck. The smiles falls from his face and he stares at Bucky with malice as he twists the knife. Bucky’s knees give for a split second (yes, he’ll recover from this, but it still fucking hurts), but he quickly rights himself and otherwise doesn’t respond. 

Bucky knows that Clint can’t see exactly what’s happening because the sadistic bastard is standing between the two of them, but he must have seen Bucky’s small stumble. “Hey, what’s going on?” he demands, standing taller. “What are you doing?”

The captain ignores him, but turns to the side so everyone can see his handiwork before he yanks the blade out. Bucky’s breath catches and he falters again, but quickly regains his footing. The asshole smirks triumphantly. “He’ll be healed from this before we arrive.” He gestures at Bucky to his crew. “We will be heroes for returning the greatest asset HYDRA has ever had.” 

“You _sonofabitch_ —" Clint yells.

Bucky tries to tell Clint with his expression to shut the fuck up and stop drawing attention to himself, but of course the idiot doesn’t listen.

“—sadistic motherfucker,” Clint’s still yelling

Now that he’s apparently done playing with Bucky, the captain turns back to Clint. Bucky’s heart jackrabbits in his chest. 

“But you do not heal so fast, hmm?” He smirks as he steps closer to Clint, eyes dipping down to where the bloody patch on Clint’s side is now visibly larger. 

Bucky tenses, ready for anything, because Clint’s glaring at the captain and he’s got that look in his eyes.

“Bet you don’t either,” Clint answers, then, without hesitation, he headbutts the asshole in the face, audibly breaking his nose. Blood erupts from the captain’s nose, gushing down into and past his mouth in a torrent. Clint laughs. 

Bucky’s legs are kicked out from under him amidst yelling and a flurry of movement, and he’s slammed face-first onto the deck of the boat. He feels two different sets of knees on his back and two muzzles pressed against his head and neck. He can see the heavy machine gun jerking back and forth as though trying to decide on a target. 

It doesn’t take much for them to put Clint down with how weak he already is—a single punch to the face drops him immediately—but somehow he’s still laughing. No, not somehow; of course he is. Bucky can’t stop the grin that breaks on his own face. It only lasts until they start kicking Clint and he has to watch helplessly as Clint curls into the best protective ball he can manage with his arms bound behind his back, which is to say, not a very effective one.

Bucky struggles harder, fighting wildly to get free to help Clint, or at least to pull their attention to himself and away from Clint. These assholes won’t kill him now that they know who he is, not when they could be heroes by returning Bucky to HYDRA, so fuck it, he’s going to fight with everything he’s got. He gets enough leverage to snap the flexicuffs and wrest his metal arm free. One of the sailors on his back loses his balance and goes sprawling and Bucky grabs the barrel of his automatic rifle. The yelling intensifies and gets more frantic, and he thinks he's about to break free altogether when heavy black boots run into his field of view. He’s not at all surprised to see one pull back and swing at his head.

* * *

He wakes up on his stomach, first becoming aware that the boat is moving at high speed now, based on the sound of the engine and the way it’s bouncing in the water. Bucky closes his again and breaths, trying to push off the nausea that wants to take hold already. The floor below him is cold, seamless metal. He lifts and turns his head, and his immediate panic subsides when he sees Clint is there, too, sitting slumped against the wall, but either unconscious or asleep. The light is dim but it’s enough to see that Clint’s in rough shape. He’s got dried blood running down the side of his face, one eye is badly swollen and discolored, and there are several other visible bruises on his arms and legs. Almost the entire side of Clint’s shirt is now wet with blood. 

Bucky sits up slowly and takes just a few seconds to assess his condition. His head is pounding and his fingers gingerly poke at the sizeable lump on his temple. The kick somehow hadn’t broken the skin, so there’s no blood. He lifts his shirt—there is blood there—and looks at the stab wound. It’s already mostly healed, there’s just a small mark remaining, and it’s long stopped bleeding. 

He quickly scoots over to perch next to Clint, taking in the room they’re in as he moves. It’s small and the walls are all metal slabs like the floor, appearing to be welded in as a makeshift cell retrofit. There are no windows, but a single bulb lights the room, protected by a metal safety cage. 

“Hey, Clint,” he says, his hand nudging lightly at his shoulder, “Hey, wake up.”

Clint’s eyelids flutter open, and he attempts a smile. Bucky tries not to grimace at his bloody teeth. “’Bout time you woke up,” Clint says. “Get these things off me, will ya?” He sounds like his throat is scraped raw. He turns his body just slightly to give Bucky access to his flixicuffs, wincing as he does.

Bucky snakes his metal arm behind Clint and easily breaks the thick plastic loop around his right wrist, but leaves the other, not wanting to jar his bad arm.

Clint sighs deeply in relief. “Thanks,” he gusts out, starting to shift.

“Just relax,” Bucky says, “let me.” He carefully maneuvers Clint’s splinted arm around in front of him. Clint immediately pulls it up until his fingers rest near his shoulder and then cups the elbow with his other hand, supporting it. “Any idea how long we’ve been in here?” Bucky asks.

“Not sure. I came to and you were still out, then I guess I fell asleep. How are you?”

“My side is mostly healed,” he sighs, standing back up and eyeing the lightbulb. The ceiling is low, and Bucky can easily reach it.

“And your head?” Clint asks. 

He just grunts his answer, but in his shame, he can’t bring himself to look at Clint. Instead, he busies himself reaching up and testing the strength of the fixture before breaking one of the lightbulb cage’s ribs free. He fingers the small piece of metal; the top and bottom are rough and sharp. It’s not the best weapon he’s ever had, but it’s not the worst either. He works it up under his silicone sleeve as he steps to the door of their cell and inspects the lightbulb cage from that angle. The piece he’d taken was from the back of the fixture and from this angle, you can’t see it. 

Satisfied, he turns back toward Clint and sees him fumbling with his splint. “Hey, don’t—” Before the words are out, Clint somehow materializes the scalpel in his hand. 

“Amateurs,” Clint scoffs with a small, lopsided grin. 

Bucky huffs and shakes his head a little—how the hell does he keep coming up with that damned blade?—then sits next to Clint and takes the scalpel. He carefully saws through the plastic cuff that’s tight around his splint, tossing it away as soon as it’s free. He hands the blade back to Clint, who returns it to its previous hiding spot.

They’re about as ready as they can be for whatever comes next, so he can finally turn his attention to the man next to him. “You okay?” he asks, shifting to get a better look.

Clint snorts, but doesn’t answer.

“Lemme see—” He reaches for Clint’s shirt, wants to check the wound in his side, but Clint bats his hand away.

“Nothin’ you can do about it.” 

“Hey,” he says, craning his neck to look closely at Clint’s face. One eye is nearly swollen shut, there are raw abrasions on his cheek from where he was thrown on the boat deck; Bucky’s pretty sure he had similar ones, but they’re already healed. The injustice of that ripples through him.

The silicone glove is gone (probably now a personal trophy for that asshole captain), and he touches Clint’s forehead. Clint tries to turn his head away, but the sensors his Bucky’s hand have already registered that the fever is up again—to 102.4. Some of that could just be all the activity since they left their staterooms, but it’s still worrying. 

“I’m fine,” Clint asserts, his eyes drooping. “Just some pain, an’ I’m tired. Nothing life threatening.”

Bucky considers for a moment. That’s possibly true. Of course, Clint’s not exactly aware of how bad his infection was— _is_ —nor that it will no doubt stage a comeback in his body if they can’t get him back onto antibiotics soon. 

Clint rolls his head toward Bucky. “The tall one,” he mumbles, “looks like he’s weak on the right side.”

“Noted,” Bucky answers with a sigh, closing his eyes. “The guy on the big gun up high gets distracted easily.”

“Yeah, I saw that, too. I worry most about—” Clint’s words cut off, and Bucky snaps his eyes open, looking around for whatever has caught his attention.

Clint is staring at…Bucky’s arm. His hand reaches out tentatively, and he fingers the inch-long gouge in the silicone sleeve. 

Bucky shakes his head. “Clint—”

“I attacked you with the scalpel,” he says, almost a question. His fingers rub absently at the tear as he stares, as though the memory of what happened on the cruise ship is just solidifying in his mind.

“Clint,” he says again.

Clint looks up at Bucky, his eyes wide. He touches Bucky’s cheekbone where the scalpel had nicked him several hours earlier—long healed—then snatches his hand back and presses the heel of it against his eye. “Oh shit, oh shit, Bucky...” 

“Clint, you were out of your head with fever. You didn’t know what you were doing.”

Clint takes his hand away and glares at Bucky. “Don’t make excuses. I could have killed you.”

Bucky scoffs. “Did you hear what I said? You were burning up and weak as a kitten. You were never going to hurt me.” 

Clint doesn’t look like he’s listening and then he gets a far-away look on his face. “I thought…” He pulls his knees up and drops his forehead onto them, bending into himself. “Oh fuck, oh fuck,” he mumbles. 

Bucky touches his hand lightly to Clint’s shoulder, and he lifts his head. ”I thought you were…” His brows knit together.

“What?” Bucky asks quietly. _A monster._

Clint blows out a long breath but doesn’t say anything.

Bucky swallows. “You said…’ _I know what you are’._ ” 

Clint stares across the room at nothing for a quiet moment, then wipes his hand down his face and straightens, looking back at Bucky. “A trickster,” he says. “I thought you were…Loki.” It sounds like he chokes on the name. “I thought…I mean, I saw _you_ , but I thought it was him wearing your face.”

Bucky absorbs that for a moment. They’ve never talked about Loki and what happened during the Battle of New York. Clint’s never volunteered anything, and he’s never asked. He knows about it, of course, because once he’d come out of his own thrall, he’d dug up every scrap of information he could about Steve and the rest of the Avengers. Steve had finally tracked Bucky down and brought him back to the Tower, but before he introduced him to everyone else, he’d given Bucky background basics on all of them. Including what was no doubt a stripped-down version of the Clint/Loki story. Probably, Steve doesn’t actually know the whole story. Now that Loki’s dead, probably only Clint does. 

He has no idea if Clint’s experience under Loki felt anything like what he’d experienced as the Winter Soldier. But Bucky does know what it feels like to come back to yourself and see the horror you’ve perpetrated on the world. In truth, the silent understanding that never needed to be voiced or acknowledged was probably a lot of what drew Bucky to the other man originally, and maybe vice versa. 

“You had a fever,” Bucky tells him evenly. “It was high, over 104. Whatever you thought, it was just the fever. It was only me in there with you.” 

Clint nods vaguely but doesn’t say anything for a long moment. His eyelids are sagging when he finally says, “Where’d you get the antibiotics? They can’t have had any on the ship.”

Bucky goes with the change of subject and rolls his head against the metal of the wall in a small shake. “No. I went to the hospital in Portimão when we docked there. It’s probably how they found us.”

He can see Clint’s small nod in his peripheral vision. “Sorry,” Clint says.

Bucky grunts. “My fault. I wasn’t careful enough.”

“Nobody’s fault,” Clint counters, then adds, “And, thanks.” 

It’s too soon to be thanking him for anything, but Bucky doesn’t say that. Glancing over, he can see that Clint is trembling and he looks exhausted. “Come on, lie down.” He tugs on Clint’s arm and urges him down until his head is on Bucky’s leg. Clint doesn’t resist. “Try to get some rest,” Bucky says, reminding himself not to touch. When he looks down a minute later, he finds Clint watching him with an odd expression. “What?” he asks.

Clint blinks slowly and reaches his good hand up to grab the collar of Bucky’s shirt. “Come ‘er,” he says, pulling firmly.

“What—” he says again but is cut off by the press of Clint’s lips to his own. Bucky startles in surprise and pulls back a little, but Clint tugs him back down. The kiss is soft, gentle, until he feels the slow slide of Clint’s tongue into his mouth. Bucky can’t stop the small groan that escapes, or keep himself from pressing forward a little more, canting his head for a better angle. Clint responds with his own small noise, and despite everything, it sends a shiver down Bucky’s spine.

It doesn’t last long—less than ten seconds—and when Clint finally lets go, Bucky sits back up and stares down at him. “Why—” The word catches in his throat and Bucky stops and starts over. “Why did you do that?”

Clint gives a small shrug. “Been wanting to do that forever. Feels a little like now or never.”

“We… We kiss all the time when we fuck,” Bucky points out, low, for the first time worrying that someone may be listening.

Clint closes his eye and sighs. “Been really wanting to do it when we don’t fuck.”

“Oh,” Bucky manages, his thoughts swirling. “Okay.” 

“Okay,” Clint echoes, and it’s apparent that he’s going to be asleep very soon. 

Bucky stares down at Clint’s face, swollen and bruised, and his breath catches with a mix of fury and longing that he can’t pick apart. He’s not sure exactly how to interpret what Clint’s just said, but as he sees Clint sinking into oblivion, he takes a chance and puts his hand lightly on his head. 

Clint turns his head into the touch and hums a little. “Feels good,” he murmurs.

Bucky disregards the idea of getting some rest of his own in favor of watching Clint, all the while methodically carding his fingers through his hair.

* * *

Bucky isn’t sure how long they’re left in there, but it’s not a terribly long time; not nearly enough time for Clint to get the rest he needs. They’ve probably been in there just long enough to take care of the captain’s nose and regroup. When he feels the engines stop, he knows their reprieve is over. Seconds later, he hears footsteps approach.

“Hey, Clint.” He nudges him gently and Clint opens his eyes.

He must hear them too because he moves to sit up and has just situated himself against the wall with Bucky’s help when the door opens.

“Get up.” The first guard enters the room and stands across from them, gesturing at the door with his automatic rifle. He doesn’t seem surprised to see Clint out of his restraints.

Bucky stands and helps Clint to his feet, but then he lets go, knowing Clint hates to show weakness. 

“Turn around,” the sailor snaps at Bucky, and he complies. Two separate sets of flexicuffs are slipped onto his wrists, which will be only a tiny bit more difficult to get out of than the single pair was earlier. “Go,” he says, without cuffing Clint, and Bucky darts a worried glance at the other man. If Clint has thoughts about the situation, they don’t show on his face. _“Go!”_ the sailor repeats, and impatiently shoves Bucky forward.

They go. The passage is narrow, and they file in a single line to the open deck, two guards in front, then Clint, then Bucky, and two guards behind. The harsh lights on the deck make them both squint as they are pushed into the open air and made to stand near the bow, several paces apart. The water is choppier than it was earlier and Bucky’s stomach lurches. The rest of the sailors are on the deck, one of them still on the NSV heavy gun, which is pointed directly at Clint again. 

“Tell me where the flash drive is,” the captain says with no preamble. Bucky smirks at his swollen nose and the black and purple that’s rising fast under his puffy eyes. The captain notices and his eyes flash. He looks between the two of them. _“Tell me where it is!”_

Neither Bucky nor Clint says anything, of course. Natasha knows how to find the USB, so it will get into the hands it needs to. In the meantime, they try to survive, and if they can’t, well, they both always knew that was a possibility. Still, Bucky is aware that things are likely get very unpleasant, very soon. He’s still looking for an opening. It’s 8 on 2, which, all things being equal, he and Clint would have no trouble with. But things aren’t equal; Clint’s at about 15%—maybe—which shifts the odds, but Bucky’s still confident that if they can find an opening, they could take these assholes down. In the meantime, Bucky’s primary concern is keeping Clint alive and he’ll do whatever he has to, to make that happen.

“So be it,” the captain says and squares himself to Bucky. "I know that there’s not much I can do to damage you, but there are ways I can hurt you, yes?” The nod the captain gives to one of the sailors is almost imperceptible, but Bucky marks it. The sailor behind Clint smirks, and then kicks the back of his knee. Clint goes down hard with a grunt, sprawling and trying to break his fall without landing completely on his bad arm.

But it still must hurt like hell because Bucky can see Clint panting, how he’s trying to curl into himself. Bucky’s fingers begin to work at his silicone sleeve, easing the piece of metal from its hiding spot. He curls his fist around it.

The captain nods again, and the sailor standing over Clint shifts to step on his splinted arm. The deck is lit enough that Bucky can see every bit of color drain from Clint face, his expression contorting as his body shakes. 

Bucky is hurling curses at the captain when he sees it: despite the obvious pain Clint’s in, his right hand is scrabbling at his left arm. The HYDRA assholes probably think he’s hoping to somehow get the boot off his injured limb, but Bucky recognizes it for what it is. Adrenaline courses through him but he waits for the opening. He almost moves too soon when the foot on Clint’s arm grinds harder, and Clint stops being able to hold back the strangled sounds that scrape out of his throat. The captain doesn’t even glance Clint’s way, instead keeping his smirking face fixed on Bucky.

Bucky stares the captain down, but watches Clint from the corner of his eye until the sailor standing on Clint’s arm screams and goes down like a ton of bricks. Bucky’s view is slightly obstructed, but he knows that Clint has just severed the guy’s Achilles tendon with the scalpel. Clint grabs the man’s sidearm as he falls, and tries to kick him away. Two shots ring out in rapid succession. One sailor goes down with an easy bullet between his eyes. The sailor on the NSV machine gun up above had ducked down behind the metal shielding when Clint pointed his gun that way, but he pops up again thinking the shot missed and takes aim at Clint. Stupid bastard. When he pulls the trigger, the gun explodes violently, and the man is thrown over the railing into the dark water, pieces of the NSV raining down around him.

Bucky had been expecting it so as soon as Clint moves, so does he, snapping the cuffs from around his wrists. Once free, he simultaneously punches the captain in his already broken nose—he drops—and jabs the spikey piece of metal he’s been holding into the jugular of the sailor on the other side of him. Blood sprays from his neck in a wide arc, and Bucky grabs him as he goes down, snagging his Glock, then using him as a meat shield. He can feel the impact of a dozen or more bullets before he throws the body, temporarily toppling two other sailors. There’s no cover, so Bucky leaps over the side of the boat, grabbing the lowest rail. Bullets splash into the water behind him as he bounces off the side, before pulling himself up to fire three shots that take out three others. He hears another shot ring out as Clint takes down the last of the standing sailors.

“STOP!” someone yells, and Bucky pops his head up to see the guy Clint had cut is now hauling Clint to his feet with one arm locked around his neck, and using _him_ as a meat shield. “Come out or I’ll shoot him!” the sailor yells, making a show of pressing the barrel of his automatic rifle hard into the base of Clint’s skull. Bucky curses under his breath. Clint looks more pissed than scared.

“Come out!” he yells again. He adjusts his stance which jostles Clint, causing him to wince. Bucky climbs back onto the deck. “Drop your weapon,” the sailor calls out to him.

Clint glances over his shoulder. “He’s not gonna do that,” he rasps. Turning back to Bucky he says, “Shoot ‘im.”

“Shut up!” the sailor shouts, his arm squeezing tighter around Clint’s neck.

Bucky hesitates. The sailor is small, so he’s well hidden behind Clint, but he’s clearly strong.

“I know I’m a better shot than you,” Clint wheezes, “but even you could make this one, and I really fucking need to lie down. Just shoot ‘im.”

Bucky huffs, then squeezes the trigger, threading the bullet into the guy’s right eye where he’d been just peeking out from behind Clint’s head. Clint twists under the barrel of the gun, grabbing it as they both fall to the deck, the sailor very much dead.

Bucky stalks over to the captain, who’s been lying dazed and holding his face as he bleeds onto the deck. He fumbles for his sidearm, but Bucky kicks it away, leveling his gun at the man’s head. “Where are we?” he asks calmly, belying the fire of rage that’s still burning inside of him.

That seems to wake the captain up. “Why would I tell you?” he spits. “You’re just going to kill me.” Bucky takes smug satisfaction in the fact that his voice is distorted by bloody congestion. 

Bucky looks across the deck at Clint, where he’s still splayed out. He’s visibly shaking and panting shallowly. The rage threatens to boil over but he reins in his control. “Look,” he says, still deceptively calm, “I can figure it out pretty easily, but I’m tired as shit and I don’t want to have to. Tell me where we are, and I won’t kill you.” When the man doesn’t say anything, Bucky shrugs and adjusts his aim.

“West of the Strait of Gibraltar, about 50 nautical miles,” the captain says quickly.

“Thank you,” Bucky says, then grabs him by the front of the shirt and starts dragging him toward the railing.

“Wait, wait!” he yells, clawing ineffectually at Bucky’s metal fist in his shirt. “You said you wouldn’t kill me!”

“Yeah, well, I lied.” Bucky sighs tiredly as he heaves him toward the rail. “Besides, _I’m_ not going to kill you. Probably the sharks will get you pretty quick, but it’s possible you’ll just drown.” The HYDRA fuck squirms and whimpers, and Bucky grabs him with both hands and pulls him up until they’re face to face. “You really shouldn’t have had your guy step on his arm,” he snarls. 

The man starts struggling desperately, so Bucky punches him in the face again with his metal fist, stunning him and splitting his cheek open. There’s a lot of blood flowing as Bucky lifts him. “Yeah, it’ll probably be the sharks,” he mutters as throws him over the railing into the dark sea. The man thrashes and screams and tries to stay afloat but in his battered condition, he struggles. Bucky stands and watches impassively until the man succumbs and his yelling finally ceases, his head slipping under the water for good. He stalks around the deck, grabbing the other six bodies and tossing them overboard as well. Each splash is hugely satisfying.

When only the two of them remain, he kneels down next to Clint who’s more or less starfished on the deck, still clutching the barrel of the automatic rifle, but otherwise looking almost relaxed. He’s conscious, but barely. Bucky carefully slides the gun out of Clint’s grip, then slips an arm under and eases him up to sitting, tucking his splinted arm in his lap.

“’M fine,” Clint mumbles, his eyes closed.

Bucky huffs. “Sure, you are. But you’re bleeding again,” he points out, tugging up on Clint’s shirt to see a line of blood trickling down from the wound and beginning to saturate his shorts. Bucky sighs. He’s of the opinion that more of Clint’s blood belongs in his body than it’s presently containing.

“’M alright,” Clint repeats, then opens his eyes and gives Bucky a look. “Sharks?” he says, with a lopsided grin.

Bucky shrugs. “There are 47 species of sharks in the Mediterranean. Some of them are bound to be around here.”

Clint snorts, then blinks at him. “Wait. Seriously?” He sounds terrible.

“Yeah, seriously.” Bucky stands slowly, bringing Clint with him as he goes. As soon as Clint is on his feet, Bucky wraps one arm around his waist and the other hand around his neck, and pushes his mouth to Clint’s in a gentle but far from chaste kiss. 

He intended it to be short, worried that Clint could collapse any second, but when he tries to pull away, Clint chases his mouth and keeps pressing into Bucky. It last considerably longer than the less-than-ten-second kiss in the cell. 

When they finally part, Clint tips his forehead to Bucky’s. “What was that for?” he rasps.

Bucky pulls back just enough to look Clint in the eyes. “Do you have any idea how supernova hot it is for a person to disable a mounted machine gun by shooting a bullet down the barrel?” Not to mention with his less-dominant hand, which was probably shaking, and while running a fever, and having just been tortured. But he doesn’t say all that because Clint already knows he’s a better shot than Bucky, and Bucky doesn’t need to feed his ego. 

Clint grins, his eyes bright with fever and beginning to glaze over. “Phht. Walk in the park.” He takes a step and staggers a little. 

Bucky grabs him, keeps him on his feet. “Exactly,” he says, wrapping Clint’s good arm around his shoulder, and his own arm carefully around Clint’s hip. “Come on, let’s get you patched up again and go find Natasha.”

* * *

Bucky skippers the boat like he was born to do it, though it’s probably just due to HYDRA know-how planted in his brain. Clint lies on the padded bench in the pilot’s cabin and watches him, fighting the lulling bounce of the boat on the waves and somehow managing to not pass out. 

They don’t want to arrive too early, so toward dawn, Bucky kills the engines and they wait, boat bobbing gently in international waters, a couple nautical miles off of Tangier. 

Bucky sits on the floor next to him. “How are you doing?” he asks quietly, touching his hand to Clint’s forehead.

“Good,” Clint answers. “I’m good.” Yes, he’s still in a boatload of pain, but Bucky had dug around and found a couple Tylenol, then pulled out a bottle of disgusting blue sports drink from somewhere and bullied him into drinking it all. More importantly, they’ve actually survived the night and there’s a decent chance they’ll get clear of this whole situation, so the pain doesn’t matter much to him. 

“You’re not good, Barton. Your fever is still above 102.”

“Well at least ’m not about to puke,” he mumbles, managing a half-smirk. “Then again, it'd be poetic justice to spew that blue shit back up at you.”

Bucky huffs, then his eyes turn serious and he takes Clint’s hand in his own, staring at it as he rubs his thumb lightly across Clint’s knuckles.

“So, we should talk,” Clint croaks.

“Yeah,” Bucky nods again. “But later? When we’re both clearer-headed.”

“Yeah, okay,” he agrees, because honestly, he’s not sure how much longer he can stay conscious and it’s a conversation he should probably be awake for. “’M gonna sleep. Y’ c’n come up here if y’ want.”

Bucky doesn’t waste any time scrambling up to the bench. Clint curls onto his side, resting his head on Bucky’s thigh. Clint closes his eyes and a few seconds later, he feels Bucky’s hand come to rest tentatively on his head. Clint hums his pleasure at that. “You c’n do that thing you were doing b’fore,” he slurs, about at his limit and hoping Bucky doesn’t need him to explain any more than that. 

He doesn’t. Bucky starts carding his fingers carefully through Clint’s hair. “Rest,” Bucky tells him. 

Clint rests.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just the epilogue left and it's very close--I promise it won't take too long.
> 
> Your thoughts and comments sustain me and I appreciate every one. Thanks for reading!


	6. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which our boys finally sort themselves out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ach! Well... this took far too long from beginning to end and I offer my sincerest apologies to flawedamythyst. Thank you so much for your endless patience and I guess all I can say is I hope that, in some way, it was worth the wait. 
> 
> As always, I offer huge thanks and appreciation to Britt and Milly for your quick and helpful beta skills. You guys are the best!
> 
> PLEASE NOTE: rating changes from M to E with this chapter.

They don’t get a chance to talk anytime soon.

They make contact with Natasha, who scoops them up in one of Tony’s private jets. It takes several hours to get to the closest medical facility that Nat deems safe enough (Landstuhl), and for most of that, Clint just sleeps, easily lulled by the comfort of Tony’s extravagance. Nat and Bucky drop him at the hospital where he is pumped full of fluids, plasma, antibiotics, and pain killers, for an entire day. He feels exponentially better by the end of it, clear-headed for the first time in what feels like forever but when he thinks about it, is almost surprised to realize was actually only a couple of days. Meanwhile, Natasha and Bucky—and a hand-picked team of trusted SHIELD operatives—return to Lisbon to retrieve the USB. 

While Clint is being transported back to the States, where Tony has the best orthopedic surgeons on the Eastern Seaboard waiting for him, Bucky and Natasha are in Sevilla working up a quick plan of action.

While Clint is at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York having his bone pinned and arm closed with a skin graft from his leg, the rest of the Avengers are on their way to meet Nat and Bucky to act on the intel on the USB.

While Clint is sitting bored out of his mind at the Tower, the rest of the team pairs off and fans out across Europe with the list of names, hunting down as many HYDRA operatives as possible, before they can scatter to the wind. He monitors their progress from the Tower, ticking off names on the list as they catch them, talking every few days with Natasha, getting updates.

It takes three weeks for the team to wrap up the operation and Clint spends a lot of that time throwing thousands of darts at the wall he’d covered in corkboard—floor to ceiling, side to side—and on which he had had Steve paint dozens of targets of various shapes and sizes. All the while, he tries to reconstruct what had happened in the mortuary, on the ship, and later the boat. He thinks there had been a _shift_ in things between him and Barnes, but he can’t exactly pinpoint why he feels that way. Most of his memories of those two days are fragmented and feel distorted. He knows—because he hadn’t had a fever yet so he remembers this part more clearly (and because the doctors had confirmed it)—that Bucky had taken action that saved his arm. After that, though, it’s hard to make sense of much. He has vague memories of Loki, of lashing out at Bucky, but also of kissing him and maybe saying some things that were more revealing than he would normally let on. And he has a bizarre but pleasant memory of Bucky…petting his head. But all of that could be just the blood loss and fever and pain mixing things up in his head. Most of the memories—hell, he’s not sure they weren’t dreams or hallucinations—have a flimsy quality to them; he doesn’t trust them. 

But he can’t shake the feeling that the way Bucky looked at him changed at some point over those couple of days. If he’s right about that, and if any of those memories have a ring of truth to them, then the two of them should probably have a conversation. But if he’s wrong and he says anything, he could jeopardize everything. 

He keeps throwing darts and trying to figure out what to say to Bucky when he gets back.

* * *

It’s late afternoon and Clint’s in his kitchen chopping mushrooms for a big pot of marinara when Natasha walks in. Her hair is wet like she’s just showered, and she’s wearing soft, comfortable clothes, so Clint’s pretty sure she’s back to stay for a while. That thing inside him that still gets tight and uncomfortable whenever Nat’s out without him loosens, and most of the tension he’s been carrying in his shoulders relaxes. 

“Hey,” she greets, giving him a warm smile.

He returns it. “Hey. You just get back?”

“Yeah. Been debriefing at SHIELD for the last couple of hours.” She steps up beside him and reaches for the knife. “Let me.” 

His arm is casted at a right angle from just above his elbow to just past his second knuckles, but Clint huffs and gently elbows her away. “It’s mushrooms, Nat. I can chop mushrooms with one hand.”

“Suit yourself.” She pours herself a cup of coffee from the carafe that’s always at least marginally fresh and moves around to sit on a stool across the island from him. She draws two long sips from the mug, which is the only tell Clint sees that she’s probably exhausted.

“Bucky back, too?” he asks, but as soon as he says it, he knows it was a mistake. He tries to feint with, “And everyone else?”

When she doesn’t respond immediately, he hazards a glance. She’s watching him thoughtfully. He raises his eyebrows in question, pretending ignorance. 

“Yes, everyone's back.” Her voice and face are completely neutral.

Clint nods and goes back to focusing on the chopping, hoping she missed it somehow. 

“This is different,” she says a moment later.

Didn’t miss it then. “Maybe,” he hedges, but giving up the pretense.

Her eyebrows arch. “Meaning?”

Clint sets down the knife and leans his hip against the counter, crossing his arms the best he can with one in a cast. “Not sure. Something seemed to change when everything went down. We didn’t have a chance to talk it through so I’m not sure what he’s thinking.” 

He’d kind of like to ask her if Bucky had said anything to her, but any way he can work out to ask would make him sound like a 13-year-old girl, so he keeps his mouth shut.

“Changed how?”

“Dunno.” He shrugs. “I was kind of out of it most of the time and there was a lot going on. I might’ve misread the situation.”

“The kind of change you were hoping for?” 

Natasha doesn’t usually dig, but he opened the door to the conversation and she’s walking through it the way he invited her to. If he closes it, she’ll respect that. Clint stares at the floor and thinks for a moment before returning her gaze. “Truthfully? It’s the kind I’ve been wanting from the start.” It’s somehow liberating to say it, to put the words out there and see how the universe reacts. 

Natasha takes another draw off the mug, then sets it on the counter. She cocks hear head. “Did you hear that bell?”

He furrows his brow in confusion. “What?”

“I think that was the sound of little Clinton Francis Barton getting his master spy wings. Well done, partner. I actually thought it was just a recreational thing between the two of you.”

He winks at her and grins, and she laughs, because they respect each other’s skills too much for her to be a sore loser when Clint manages to one-up her. He’s actually pretty fucking proud of himself for keeping his feelings for Barnes a secret from her for as long as he apparently did. 

“Are you in love with him?”

Clint chews on the inside of his cheek while he thinks about that. “Maybe? I guess I’d like a chance to find out.”

She smiles into her coffee mug as she takes another sip.

“What?” Clint asks.

“Nothing. I’m just happy for you. I can see how the two of you fit together.”

“Yeah, well.” He steps back to the counter where he deftly scrapes the mushrooms onto the wide blade of the chopping knife in a single quick motion and flicks them over his shoulder. He hears them plop into the pot of sauce behind him. “Like I said, I don’t really know where we stand, so…”

“Are you going to talk to him?” 

He holds a red pepper down with the tips of the fingers of his casted hand and starts cutting it as he says, “Yeah. Next time I can get him alone.”

Natasha must be satisfied with that answer because she moves on. “Can I tell everyone else you’re cooking?” She knows that sometimes Clint cooks a big pot of something to stick in the freezer for when he stumbles home after days or weeks in the field, and sometimes he cooks to share. 

Today he was cooking because he was bored, and not knowing the team was returning, he figured he might as well do some more stocking up. After a couple weeks alone at the Tower though, his freezer is pretty well full, and he’s happy to pivot. He knows that if everyone just returned, the alternative is likely takeout in the common room. And he also knows, while no one ever really says it, they all prefer a home cooked meal, shared in the quieter intimacy of someone’s private apartment.

“Sure. I’ve got plenty of pasta, but nothing else, so let ‘em know they need to bring something if we’re doing this.”

She’s got her phone out and is texting everyone even as she says, “Will do.” She takes a last swallow of her coffee and gets up, moving toward the front hall. 

“Don’t let Steve bring the wine,” he yells after her.

“ _Please_ ,” he hears her say as she’s opening the door, “like you have to remind me!”

* * *

He’d hoped Bucky would show up early so he’d have a chance to maybe get a read on what he’s thinking, but it’s Tony who arrives first, talking a mile a minute the second he steps through the door and carrying a case of wine. He's uncorking a couple bottles of red so they can breathe before dinner when Bucky arrives. 

“Hey,” he says to Tony, tipping his head. He hands Clint a baguette. “You look better,” he says, offering a mild smile that reveals nothing. 

Clint’s stomach twists apprehensively, but he smiles and says, “Thanks. I feel better.” He lifts his cast and waggles his fingers a little.

Bucky opens his mouth to say something else, but they’re interrupted by Thor who makes a booming entrance, followed closely by Steve and Bruce, who arrive together, and eventually, Natasha. There’s no hope of getting any answers about what Bucky’s thinking with the crowd there, so he sets it aside and lets himself just enjoy the fact that his team is all back and in one piece and together. 

Not surprisingly, they all look pretty tired after three solid weeks of trying to get the jump on the HYDRA sleeper agents, but there’s also a loose easiness to them. They’d been surprisingly successful, tracking down about 85% of the sleeper agents on the list before the rest woke up to the fact that they were being hunted. That was a lot more than they’d expected, thinking that word would get out quickly and send the rats scurrying. But as an organization, loyalty isn’t exactly HYDRA’s strongest suit, and they’d left their agents in the wind with no forewarning and no help. It made the Avengers’ job a hell of a lot easier, and for once, if feels like a pretty good victory, even if Clint had only been able to watch from the sidelines.

By unspoken agreement, they usually don’t discuss work when they share meals. Instead, conversation over dinner usually wanders widely, this night, ranging from Brexit, to whether Aaron Rodger or Brett Favre is the best Green Bay quarterback of all time, to a tutorial from Thor on Asgardian politics, to the solitary life of the Panamanian tree sloth.

As they eat and talk, Clint can’t keep his eyes from regularly drifting toward Bucky, and sometimes, he finds Bucky watching him back. One time, Bucky smiles at him, and Clint’s stomach flutters before tugging his eyes reluctantly away when someone calls for his attention. 

Napkins lie haphazardly on the table and chairs are pushed back at varying angles when Steve tries to talk about what comes next regarding the handful of HYDRA agents on the list who got away. Tony boos, and Bucky whips his butter knife at Steve from across the table. Steve catches it in his fist an inch from his right eye. He glares at Bucky.

“Shut your piehole,” Bucky says easily, looking relaxed and happy where he’s absently twirling the stem of his wineglass, the half-inch of red circling like a vortex. “Give us a couple days to catch our breath.” 

Clint sees Bucky glance at him for a second before shifting back to Steve.

Steve huffs. “Fine. Can we regroup on Thursday?” he asks the table at large.

“Friday,” Tony counters. “I need at least 72 hours of sleep first.”

Steve waves his agreement, and Bruce changes the subject by asking, “Clint, how’s your arm?”

Clint is surprised the topic hasn’t come up earlier. He lifts his casted arm a couple inches from where it’s been resting against his abdomen and wiggles his fingers. “Should be good as new in a couple weeks. Well, after some PT, but the doc says the prognosis for full function is excellent.”

“Did they use a graft?”

He’s feeling loose and comfortable from a couple glasses of wine and he says, “Yeah. From my thigh. Will have two wicked new souvenirs from Lisbon.” From the corner of his eye, he sees Bucky stiffen and his face fall flat. An unusually sharp memory from the mortuary hits him, of Bucky looking guilty and closed off. Clint kicks himself for his careless words, even if Barnes blaming himself is ridiculous.

When Bruce asks some more technical questions about the procedure, Bucky quietly excuses himself and heads toward the small bathroom off the entry. Clint tracks him with his eyes for a few steps but has to stop when the only alternative would be to not so subtly twist in his chair. He returns his attention to Bruce and has to ask him to repeat his question. 

Bucky’s absence grows protracted. No one comments on it, but it’s clear everyone notices, because there are a couple of awkward moments. Several minutes later, as Tony is wrapping up a story—something about MIT, Clint hasn’t been paying attention—he finally hears the bathroom door open. Natasha shoots a quick glance at Clint and then capitalizes on the lull in the conversation. “I stayed to clean last time we ate together.” She presses her finger to her nose. “Not it.”

The rest of them sitting around the table do the same. When Bucky walks in and sees them, his step hitches and he swears under his breath, but then huffs good-naturedly.

Everybody laughs, and a few give Bucky a rasher of shit, but as he starts to grab dishes off the table, the others stand to help. As soon as they’ve deposited the dishes in the kitchen, Natasha masterfully herds them all toward the door without it being obvious that that’s what she’s doing. Unless you’re Clint and understand how her mind works. A minute later, it’s just him and Bucky alone in the quiet kitchen.

They rinse the plates, glasses, and silverware and load them into the dishwasher, then work together to hand wash and dry the larger serving dishes and pots and pans. Bucky talks as they work, filling him in on what he and Bruce had encountered in the last three weeks. Clint only half-listens, his mind too distracted by the other conversation he wants to have with Bucky. 

After Clint hands the last pot to Bucky to dry, he shifts and leans back against the counter, crossing his arms. 

Bucky returns the dried pot to the hanging rack above the island, then mirrors Clint’s position against the opposite counter. “Dinner was good. Thanks.”

Clint still can’t get a read on him. He shrugs. “I only made part of it.”

“The best part. Beats takeout.”

“Thanks.” There’s an awkward silence before Clint clears his throat a little and says, “So. There are things we should maybe talk about.” His mouth feels as dry as the Mohave and he opens the refrigerator to pull out a couple of beers. 

“Probably.” Bucky takes both bottles, twists the caps off, and hands one back to Clint. 

Clint takes a sip. “Okay, the first thing I’m going to say is that my injury is not your fault. It’s not your fault, it’s not the Winter Soldier’s fault. You didn’t shoot me, so will you please let that go?”

“I—”

“I talked to the surgeons,” Clint continues over him. “Three of them, because Tony is very thorough, and they all said that if you hadn’t done the fasciotomy in the mortuary, at best I’d probably have permanent loss of a significant amount of function, and at worst, I could have lost my arm altogether. Instead I’m going to get out of this with only a couple of new scars, and I count myself really fucking lucky. I need you to get that, because losing use of my arm, that would’ve…” Clint can’t really put into words what that would have done to him. He settles on, “You saved my life.”

“Wasn’t me,” Bucky grinds out. “Was the Winter Soldier.”

“Bullshit. It was Bucky Barnes who saved my arm, kept me alive, and got us out of that mess. The Winter Soldier would have killed me without thinking twice. You’re _not_ the Winter Soldier, Buck. You’re just you, using some things that HYDRA was stupid enough to leave you with.” 

Bucky sighs and wipes a hand down his face. He doesn’t say anything to agree, but he doesn’t argue the point either, which Clint takes as a small victory. 

“So,” Clint says, his heartrate picking up a little with nerves. “There’s some other stuff I feel like we should talk about.” He takes another sip of the liquid courage.

Bucky nods slowly. “Okay.”

“A lot happened back there in Lisbon and on the boats.”

Bucky snorts at the understatement. 

Clint plunges ahead. “Yeah, so, it uh, it seemed like maybe our feelings about each other changed—"

“My feelings haven’t changed,” Bucky interjects.

Clint feels his face heat. “Oh, okay, well,” he laughs uneasily and rubs the back of his neck, “you know, I was really out of it pretty much the entire time, so I guess I maybe misread some things, or literally hallucinated them, so...yeah, just, forget I said anything.” He turns and starts digging in a cupboard to get out from under Bucky’s gaze. “Hey, you want to take some of this food back to your place for later? I can pack some up for you.” When he turns back with some plasticware in his hand, he flicks a quick glance at Bucky, who’s watching him with a furrowed brow.

“I feel like I just screwed something up.”

“Nah, we’re good.” Clint waves his hand at him. He opens the refrigerator and is about to pull out the leftover pasta when Bucky’s hand slowly pushes it closed. Clint backs out of the fridge and leans against the counter again. 

“Can we back up a little?” Bucky asks, brows knitted even tighter together.

“No, it’s cool. I get it. You want to keep things casual—”

Bucky shakes his head vigorously. “That is the _opposite_ of what I want to do.” 

Clint stops and blinks, so confused that he can’t think of what to say.

“I wanted whatever this is to be more than casual from the start, but that didn’t seem to be what you wanted, so,” Bucky shrugs, “I went with it.”

Clint squeezes his eyes shut and rubs his forehead with his fingers. “It’s like I wrote a script and you said my lines,” he mumbles before looking back at Bucky. “Ah… we’ve kind of been idiots, haven’t we?”

“Seems like it.”

The relief is still washing over him when he decides to take a leap of faith. “So, there’s one more thing,” he says and reaches across the space to grabs Bucky left hand in his right, tugs him to step forward a little. When he’s close, Clint carefully sticks a finger into the seam between the silicone of the hand and arm. Bucky tenses. “Relax,” Clint says, then deftly peels back the silicone glove until it’s removed altogether. He tosses it onto the counter, then twines his fingers with Bucky’s.

“Don’t,” Bucky says weakly, staring down at their joined hands, even though it’s already done. 

“Why not?” Clint asks softly.

There’s a long beat before Bucky answers. “I could kill you with this hand,” he says flatly.

Clint disengages his hand from Bucky’s and presses it to Bucky’s neck. “And I could kill you with mine,” he says, applying just a tiny bit of pressure—there and gone in an instant—to make his point.

“It’s not the same.”

“Isn’t it?”

“No.”

“Why?”

Bucky doesn’t answer. 

Clint’s hand slides up Bucky’s arm, into his shirt’s short sleeve to the spot where silicone fades into his skin. His fingertips dig into the top of the sleeve, tugging just the tiniest fraction. 

“Can I?” he asks.

Bucky still doesn’t say anything.

“Buck, I’ll stop if you tell me to.”

“Why do you want to?” he asks quietly, finally meeting Clint’s eyes.

“Because it’s part of you,” he says. “Because I hate the idea that you hate it, and if I can show you that it’s okay, then maybe one day you’ll start to believe it too.” 

“It’s not me. It’s something HYDRA made me.” Bucky’s gaze shifts over Clint’s shoulder at nothing. “I’m a monster.”

“Is Natasha a monster?” he asks, and Bucky gives him a sharp look. “The Red Room made her. Is that how you see her? Or Bruce? Or Steve, even? Are they monsters?” Bucky hasn’t made a move to stop him, so Clint slips the tips of his three middle fingers under the silicone and pulls the sleeve down and off, then slides his hand slowly up and down Bucky’s arm. “You’re not a monster,” he murmurs, before lifting Bucky’s hand to kiss his palm. It’s surprisingly warm and smooth.

Bucky shakes his head fractionally, but Clint pulls him closer and into a soft kiss. It takes several long seconds where Clint starts to think that Bucky’s going to withdraw and put the sleeve back on, but then Bucky finally relaxes into it, taking a step forward to gently press Clint back into the counter and deepen the kiss. Clint groans a little and tilts his head so they can slot their open mouths perfectly and let their tongues slide together. Bucky makes a small sound that goes straight to Clint’s cock, and he wraps his hand around Bucky’s neck to make sure he doesn’t try to leave. 

After several minutes of standing in the kitchen just kissing, Clint backs Bucky over to the couch because the bedroom, with their history there of fast and furious fucking, doesn’t feel like the place for them tonight. Right now is about something new and different; it’s about lying together, limbs entwined, sharing slow kisses and carefully exploration. 

Clint lies with his casted limb over his head, propped on the arm of couch to keep from inadvertently bashing Bucky with it. Bucky is wedged on his side against the back of the couch, partly draped over Clint, who had made sure to position them so that Bucky’s lying on his regular arm and it’s his metal arm that has to do the exploring.

They’re both half-hard, but in no hurry to do anything about it, content to savor the slow trajectory they’re on. Clint’s shirt is unbuttoned and falling away, and Bucky’s hand slides along the curve of his ribs while his lips and tongue and occasionally teeth, trail along his jaw. Clint shivers, and his cock twitches. His hand wanders everywhere it can reach, but when Bucky’s mouth starts to work the spot just behind the hinge of his jaw, Clint hisses, and his hand goes to Bucky’s hair, gripping it lightly and holding him in place.

“Oh, fuck, you feel good,” Clint pants softly. He arches his back and his hips press his thickening cock into Bucky’s. He can feel the smile on Bucky’s face as his mouth works its way down Clint’s neck.

Clint’s hand slides down Bucky’s back then under the bottom edge of his t-shirt to creep up the smooth expanse of Bucky’s back. Clint has a sudden and deep need to feel more of Bucky’s skin pressed against him. He tugs at the shirt. “Off,” he demands, slightly breathless.

Bucky sits up enough to peel his shirt off, then resumes his position, his mouth immediately back on Clint’s neck, scraping teeth over the rough stubble. Clint sighs at the feel of acres of Bucky’s warm skin sliding against his own. _“Fuck,”_ he says again. It’s not like they aren’t familiar with each other’s bodies, but it somehow feels like the first time he’s ever touched Bucky. 

Clint groans as Bucky’s mouth eats at his neck, tongue seemingly everywhere at once. When Bucky’s hand drops down to cup him through his pants, Clint makes a strangled sound and pushes up into it. Bucky keeps rubbing gently and Clint’s fully hard by the time he reaches a shaky hand down to pop the button on his jeans and unzip the flies. Bucky tugs Clint’s jeans apart to give himself more room, then slowly slides his hand inside, lightly caressing him through the cotton material of his boxer-briefs. It takes a moment for Clint’s brain to cotton on to the fact that Bucky’s still uptight about touching Clint with his metal hand. He’d never seemed tentative before, but then, he’d always kept the prosthetic skin on when they’d fucked in the past. 

“Jesus, Bucky, just…touch me already…please,” he gasps, with an edge of desperation. And then, before he can give Bucky the chance to balk, he grabs the metal hand and gently urges it beneath the elastic band of his underwear. Bucky stills, ducking his face into the crook of Clint’s neck, his hot breath puffing silently into Clint’s neck.

“Hey,” Clint murmurs, nudging Bucky’s chin up so he can see his eyes. “It’s just you, and if you don’t touch me, I’m gonna have to do it myself and that doesn’t sound like nearly as much fun.” 

Bucky stares at him for a long moment.

“Please,” Clint says quietly, then cants his hips a fraction. _“Please.”_

He sees the moment Bucky relents and thank fucking god because a second later, Bucky starts stroking him, long slow movements from root to tip. The hand is hard, with no give, but it’s no less pleasurable for it, just different. Clint grunts his appreciation and slides his hand around to the back of Bucky’s neck, guiding their mouths back together. Clint’s good with his hands, but with Bucky half on top of him, his hand in Clint’s pants, and Clint with only one working arm, he can’t really get into Bucky’s pants. He makes a frustrated noise as his hand fumbles with the button on Bucky’s jeans. 

Bucky shifts. “Come ‘ere,” he mumbles against Clint’s mouth, tugging him until they’re both standing up. Bucky slides his hands up under the shoulders of Clint’s shirt, pushing the material back and off. Clint’s left sleeve catches on his cast and Bucky care to tug it around the obstruction without jostling his arm. Clint has toed off his shoes and he shoves at his pants and underwear and Bucky obliges, going to his knees to push them all the way down and tug them off. Just as he’s tossing them away, he stops, staring at Clint’s leg. The graft site. Clint had more or less forgotten about it already. 

They’d taken a long (from his hip nearly to his knee), five-inch-wide, rectangular strip of skin from the front of his thigh, off to the side a bit, in order to close the wound on his arm. The skin there is healed but what’s left behind is darker than the rest of the skin on his leg and little shiny. Its precise geometry stands out strikingly against the organic curves of the human body. 

Bucky’s hand hovers just above it and he looks up at Clint. “Does it hurt?”

“No. It stung like road rash at first,” Clint admits because he knows Bucky won’t be fooled by a lie. “It’s fine now. I’m cleared for…activity.” He grins.

Bucky grins back. “Sit,” he orders, and Clint sits. Bucky grabs a few throw pillows and sets them on Clint’s left, then carefully rotates Clint’s casted arm to rest on them. Clint rolls his eyes but otherwise doesn’t complain. Bucky strips out of his own pants and underwear then hesitates, standing in front of Clint almost shyly. Clint can’t stop his hand from reaching out to touch, his fingers dragging from Bucky’s pecks, down his abs, across the cut of the v-line at Bucky’s hip, before tracing lightly up his erection. Bucky sucks in a sharp breath and closes his eyes in a slow blink. 

“Jesus Christ, you’re beautiful,” Clint says, aware he sounds a little breathless. He’s always thought so, but he’s never felt like he could say it before. Bucky actually seems to blush a little at that and Clint smiles. “Come back,” he pleads, tugging on Bucky’s hand.

Bucky bends in to plant a smoldering kiss on Clint. It’s all open mouthed and soft tongue stoking Clint’s nonstop and it goes on and on until Clint has to break away in a gasp. “Fuck,” he pants as Bucky starts to work his way down Clint’s neck. His lips are tingling and they feel puffy, and his face is hot from the sting of Bucky’s stubble. It feels fantastic. His whole body has a low-intensity buzz humming through it just from the kissing and light touching. 

Bucky keeps working his way downward, trailing wet and hot down Clint’s chest, lingering long enough to lick and suck a little at his nipples. Clint’s hand reflexively reaches out to grasps Bucky’s, and he barely registers that it’s his metal one—mostly he needs something to ground himself because he feels like he’s going to float away. He squeezes hard, because, oh God, Clint hadn’t actually realized that his nipples were a thing for him. Bucky’s teeth scrape over a nipple again and Clint moans, his cock jumping and nudging Bucky in the chest. He pulls back and looks down, then grins up at Clint.

“Is that a hint?”

All Clint can manage is a choking noise from the back of his throat. 

Bucky bends to take Clint’s cock into his mouth, and even though he knows it’s coming, Clint gasps and his hand automatically goes to Bucky’s head, hips flexing without intent. It’s not like they haven’t sucked each other off before; they have, plenty of times, especially when circumstances didn’t allow anything more athletic. But like everything else since Lisbon, it’s different. Bucky keeps his mouth at the head of Clint’s cock, lightly sucking, running his tongue around and around, with an extra swipe at the frenulum every now and then. Clint’s not going to get off from just this, but it’s still enough to edge him to the point of madness. When pre-come beads at the top, Bucky’s laps it up greedily, squeezing and sucking softly, coaxing more out. 

Clint shudders, and his back arches. “Oh fuck, oh fuck…Bucky…” He looks up at Clint through dark lashes and Clint can’t take any more—he needs Bucky’s mouth back on his. “Get up here,” he demands, grasping Bucky’s short hair in his fist and pulling hard enough to make his point. Bucky moves up to straddle him and Clint keeps pulling, crashing their mouths together. 

Bucky’s hard enough to pound nails now too, and he rocks against Clint so that the smooth skin of their cocks rubs together. Clint snakes his arm between them and finally gets a handful of Bucky’s thick cock. He hears a loud push of breath from Bucky’s nose, feels his hips buck. 

Bucky’s hands are everywhere, touching Clint’s face, his shoulders, tweaking a nipple now and then. There’s no hesitancy to his touch anymore, but Clint would bet that that’s more because Bucky’s lost in the moment and not thinking about what his hand is made of, and not because he’s not worried about it anymore. Still, baby steps. 

“Come on,” Clint says, pulling at Bucky’s metal arm and tangling their hands together around both of their cocks. After a few seconds, Bucky stops so he can duck his head and drop a line of spit down to slip between their fingers and ease the way. “Fuck…yeah, fuck,” Clint gasps at the smooth, hot slide of it. They keep a slow, lazy pace, kissing languidly while they run their linked hands up and down their cocks. 

Bucky’s fits his other hand against Clint’s face and his thumb strokes absently over Clint’s cheekbone. The gentle, wet warmth of Bucky’s mouth is something Clint would be happy to get lost in, wandering aimlessly for the rest of his life. 

Clint’s balls start to tighten in that achingly pleasurable way as his climax slowly builds, and he’s torn between wanting to speed toward it, and wanting to hold off, to keep riding the deliberate pace, savor the feel of Bucky close and warm and _his_. But when Bucky slides his mouth over to Clint’s ear, laves the shell, sucks on the lobe, then slips his free hand up to pinch his nipple, Clint yells and his whole body shudders as he comes convulsively, thick white ropes spilling over both their hands. Clint’s hand stalls, falling uselessly to the side, but Bucky’s works him through it, slowly stroking upward as he squeezes lightly, over and over, milking every bit of come out of Clint’s cock until he’s a twitching, sweating mess.

Clint floats bonelessly for a while, until Bucky starts to rock in his lap again and he looks down to see Bucky fisting himself. He grunts and nudges Bucky’s hand aside so he can drive. Bucky closes his eyes and tilts his head back, mouth going slack with pleasure. Clint experiments, varying his grip, watching Bucky’s face to read what he likes. It strikes him that he’s never really _seen_ Bucky come. Their fucking has always been so physical and frenzied, and he’d spent so much time telling himself he couldn’t have this, that he’s never just…watched.

Clint tightens his grip and lets Bucky set the pace, holds still while Bucky fucks his fist. “That’s it,” Clint murmurs, “show me how you like it.” 

Bucky’s breathing picks up and his hips rock harder. “Clint,” he chokes out, then comes, the milky fluid painting Clint’s chest and abs. 

“ _God_. Kiss me, Buck,” he growls, because he needs Bucky’s mouth, but he doesn’t want to stop working him through his orgasm. Bucky obliges, crashing their mouths together in sloppy, uncoordinated kisses that eventually subside into just panting into each other’s mouths. When Clint lets go of Bucky’s cock, Bucky drops his forehead down to Clint’s collarbone, resting there as the heaving in their chests gradually slows. 

After a minute, Bucky sighs deeply and tilts them both to lying again, carefully arranging their limbs to make sure not to bump or jar Clint’s arm. He reaches blindly to grab the closest piece of clothes—his own t-shirt—then tenderly wipe the come from Clint’s chest, both their hands. They doze a little after that, waking occasionally to kiss and wordlessly touch some more, exploring the familiar ridges and valleys of each other’s bodies in a brand-new way. Clint spends a long time sliding his hand up and down Bucky’s metal arm, rubbing his thumb in Bucky’s palm. It’s a little sticky, so Clint pulls it to his mouth and lazily licks it clean, Bucky’s eyes wide and watching the whole time. 

Eventually Clint sighs. “We should move to the bed.” 

Bucky grunts and extricates himself from Clint’s limbs before tugging Clint to his feet. They’re in the bedroom and just getting comfortable in the bed when Bucky says, “Oh, I have something for you.” He clambers back out of the bed and darts out of the room fully naked—and isn’t that a beautiful sight—only to return a moment later with a long, thin box in his hand. He hands it to Clint.

“What’s this?”

“A souvenir from Lisbon,” Bucky says, rolling Clint onto his side to face him.

Clint snorts. “I already got a couple of those.”

Bucky runs his hand down the length of Clint’s barely healed thigh. It doesn’t hurt—he wasn’t lying earlier—but the skin there is sensitive, and he shivers at the touch. Bucky tucks his face into Clint’s neck, nuzzling and kissing and Clint turns his head to catch Bucky’s mouth. They spend more long minutes just kissing, tasting, hands skimming lightly. The box slips from Clint’s fingers, forgotten.

A long while later—Clint has no idea how long—Bucky murmurs in his ear, “You gonna open it?” then licks along the shell, tongue crashing in deep for a second.

Clint shudders and his cock jumps and shit, he could maybe go another round. “Not…” his breath catches, “…not if you keep doing that.”

Bucky pulls back with a grin and reaches over behind Clint to rescue the box, rolling Clint onto his back, and setting the box on his stomach. 

It’s wrapped, but in a way that he can just take the top off the box. He opens it to find a scalpel nestled on a bed of gauze. Clint glances at Bucky with a raised eyebrow and half-smile quirking on his lips. “Oh, Baby, you shouldn’t have,” he says, bemused.

Bucky huffs. “I never saw you pick up the damned thing, but every time I turned around you had it in your hand. Figured you must really have a hard on for it or something, so I grabbed it from the boat when Natasha and I went back to it.”

Clint reaches up to plant a laughing kiss on Bucky’s mouth. “I love it,” he says, and it hits Clint like a blow that he knows the answer to the question Natasha had asked him earlier. “But I love you more,” he says into Bucky’s mouth, as he tosses the scalpel over his shoulder. It hits the dimmer switch, dropping the lights to a more simmering level before landing safely on the dresser. 

“Show off,” Bucky say, but he’s grinning as he wraps his arms around Clint, pulling him closer. “Also, for the record, I love you, too,” he adds, rolling them so he's above Clint, and dipping his mouth in to kiss him again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, there it is. To those of you who subscribed and read and commented over the past months, I can't thank you enough - your encouragement kept me going and kept me motivated during this damned pandemic. 
> 
> Comments are the food that sustains fic writers, so if you're inclined to leave one, know that it is hugely appreciated.

**Author's Note:**

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